It's Marvelous Middle Grade Monday with a review of Looking Up by Stephan Pastis

Looking Up by Stephan Pastis
Publisher:  Aladdin
Format:  Hardcover
Number of pages:   240 pages
Published:   October 10th, 2023
Source:  Publisher

Opening Line:  "You know you're a square peg in a round world when you find you're the only person at the birthday party defending the piñata."  

Saint and her mother live in the poorer part of town.  Saint spends her time taking care of Dr. Rutherford B. Hayes, her pet turtle, collecting kneeling medieval knights and protecting anything that has a face, which includes birthday piñatas, gnomes and tailless donkeys.  Lately, Saint has been upset by all of the changes happening in her neighborhood.  Places that she's loved to visit are slowly closing or are being torn down and replaced by condos and coffee shops.  When her favorite toy store, Punch's Toy Farm is demolished, Saint knows it's time to act.  So, she enlists the help of Daniel Mc Gibbons.  The quiet round-faced boy from across the street and together they plan to save what's left of their little town.

Stephan Pastis is the author of the Pearls Before Swine comic strip and the Timmy Failure series which has been adapted into the Disney+ movie Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made.  Looking Up is a very sweet story about a very lonely little girl.  Saint has complex feelings, and I quite enjoyed her use of big words.  She is very bright and cares very deeply about her neighborhood.  She's experienced a lot of changes over the last few years, and you get the sense that she's trying to work through everything going on around her.  It's really interesting seeing her perspective on the changes.  Saint also feels deeply hurt by her mother constantly breaking her promises.  For example, when she promises to take Saint to her favorite toy store and then backs out of it.  There's a part of this situation that Saint hasn't quite grasped yet, but I bet there are quite a few kids who would feel the same way as Saint does.  Overall, the story really surprised me, the plot built slowly but wow that climax packed a punch, especially with the twist at the end that I never saw coming.  What a bittersweet moment.  Have a tissue handy.  Saint is such a gem; she is so sweet to Daniel, and I just loved that she wanted to be his protector/knight.  The black and white illustrations were adorable and added so much to the story.  Yep, this is a keeper that I want to revisit again.     

   

 I hope you'll check out all the other Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday posts at Greg Pattridge's blog HERE      

**A huge thank you to Aladdin and Simon and Schuster for the review copy**