"You can never tell where a simple line may lead."
"I am the artist and no one can tell me what art to make."
One of the best feelings in the world is beginning a wonderful book and then having time to enjoy the whole book, the whole wonderful story journey, in just one day. I picked up Things Seen from Above this morning to read on the train. I read about 72 pages and then a few more on the way home and then I devoured the remainder of the book (252 pages in total) before dinner.
April is in Grade Six. Her former friend has changed over the summer into someone she no longer recognises. The lunch room feels like a battle ground. To avoid the lunch conflict and the dreadful feeling of not fitting in and having no friends, April volunteers to be a playgound seat friendship buddy. The elementary school in this book is so large that there are several sessions for lunch. April assists the kids from fourth grade during their break while her grade are in the cafeteria.
There is a new girl in the school called Veena. She has moved to Marshallville from India. The school counsellor suggests Veena and April might work together on the buddy bench.
On her first day in her new role April notices a young boy called Joey Byrd. He is alone and seems to be doing something strange in the playground - drawing patterns and circles using his shoes to scrape the dirt. What is he doing? And why?
"The more I studied Joey, the more things I noticed. I made a mental list of them. How he walked with his hands clenched and his thumbs pointing outward like a hitch-hiker. How his grey sweatpants were way too short and the elastic bunched around his ankles. How his mouth was pressed into such a tight line of concentration, It didn't look like he had lips. What was he concentrating on?"
When the school janitor - the wonderful Mr Ulysses invites the girls to view Joey's work from the school roof they begin to realise the significance and enormity of Joey's art. The three of them agree to keep this a secret but then they accidentally share the information with another student and at this point things begin to spiral out of control.
"I want to apologise again for what happened. Veena and I think you are a really cool person who does amazing drawings - or tracings, as you call them. You're like ... a star to us."
"Joey's popularity also seemed to pull other forgotten kids out of the shadows. It was as if he shone a bright light on anyone who was hiding in a corner or standing against a wall alone. The outcasts started getting noticed. The excluded were included."
One of the strengths of this book is the beautiful restrained way April approaches Joey. She shows enormous emotional intelligence. She doesn't rush Joey. She listens, observes and waits and then approaches him slowly. I would love to meet April and thank her for her compassion and her wisdom.
There are alternating chapters in this book where we hear from Joey and are able to experience his different view of the world, his different understandings of human relationships, and his wonderful skill with enormous art pieces. We also glimpse his mother and father and learn a little about their personalities which go some way to explaining Joey's reactions and understandings. At one point Joey talks about a class reading lesson. Reading is a mystery and a huge effort for Joey and sadly he is regularly expelled from this classroom but in this scene the teacher is reading "The Strange Case Of Origami Yoda".
"It was a very funny story, and Joey really like it. It was the first book he'd every liked - partly because it made him laugh and partly because he didn't have to read it himself. "
You can read the back story for this book on Shelley Pearsall's web page. Things Seen from Above was published in 2020 and it is available in paperback so I highly recommend you add this to your library (and personal) shopping list. Read more of the plot here.
You can read about another book by Shelley Pearsall The Seventh Most Important Thing:
Here are some companion books to read after Things Seen from Above:
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