Looking Up is an early chapter book laugh fest, with lots of heart

The laugh-per-page ratio to a Stephan Pastis book is incredibly high. His collections of Pearls Before Swine and the Trubble Town graphic novel series are hilarious, observational, intelligent and some of the best bang for the buck in a book that you can invest in. I say “invest in” because every Pastis book that we’ve received or purchased has never left our house and sticks like glue in our forever library. We had heard about the Timmy Failure book series but hadn’t read any of them. They are less cartoon-illustrated books and more in line with a chapter book for upper elementary through middle school. Looking Up is a book that falls into that category. It also produces multiple laughs per page, gets you thinking, grinning, trying to figure out some jokes, and in the end, tugs at the heartstrings more than you expect.

The cover of Looking Up tells you absolutely nothing about the book. You see a little girl who is holding a turtle and looking up at the night sky. This is a case where it helps to know Pastis’ style, sense of humor, quality from previous books, and overall enjoyment that you derived from reading them. You just have to trust the process and know that his books are going to be unlike most other things that you’ll read, but a good time is certain to be had. However, if this is your first book from Pastis you could also look at the illustrations inside for a quick reassurance that it’ll be time well spent.

You’ll see a kid (Saint, the one who is on the cover) throwing eggs at a tree. Later in the book, you will see a turtle bouncing three times and then falling off of a roof. I see a lady wearing a Swiss cheese costume while holding a skull head with bird wings attached to it. You’ll see one to two illustrations on almost every page that will make you laugh or elicit some form of curious thinking.

Looking Up, along with the other books from Pastis is weird, but it’s the best kind of weird that will get those reluctant readers digging into a book. The characters are funny. The situations are just on this side of the impossible. The text and illustrations in Looking Up make the book effortlessly readable for grades five and up. The combination of all of this is hilarious, slightly subversive, very smart, and mglit that has the potential to make kids talk about books between their peers.

Saint is a shy girl who likes what she likes, and what she likes now is going to the toy store. She’s developed a friendly relationship with the manager at Punch’s Toy Farm, a bulbous-headed character named Muffins. He knows that she collects toy knights who are kneeling and on this day, Saint was supposed to go to Punch’s, but she couldn’t because her mom changed plans, which led her to throw eggs at a tree in frustration.

Unfortunately, on the other side of the tree is a young boy, Daniel, who was making some really cool art, that is not splattered with eggs. To muddy the situation even more, Daniel lives across the street from Saint, who seems like a nice kid, but is quite shy and different from her. Shortly after that, Saint realizes that Punch’s Toy Farm has been demolished, reduced to a pile of rubble to make way for some hipsters who want to build a coffee place.

As Saint and Daniel start to hang out more they realize that their future in the city that they live in are intertwined. Daniel’s house is soon put on the market and Saint figures out a plan to make those crazed adults who would sell anything for money, a way to stop the madness. If you’re familiar with Pastis’s work you’re familiar with twists and turns that seem random and out of place but always make sense in the end. The same is true with Looking Up, but this time it’s got more heart than you’re expecting. It has so much more heart that it just might bring a wayward tear to your eyes that’ll be rolling around in a confused state because it thought that you were reading a Stephan Pastis book.

 One might expect a little heart and emotion when you’re dealing with a child’s only house being sold. You can kind of see it when readers initially meet the coffee hipsters who are buying up any real estate in their somewhat downtrodden area. As our two friends start to bond about the pending sales of Daniel’s house it gets real. It maintains the surreal humor, as well as, the comedy, but there’s also a current of serious housing displacement that’s looming over them.

It’s because of this that Looking Up is a fabulous chapter book that, to an extent, doubles as an all-age graphic novel too. There’s so much to love about Looking Up that you won’t be sure what your favorite aspect of the book is. The humor fires on all cylinders. The heart of the book sneaks up on readers and provides a story on dealing with the ups and downs of life, as well as, the invaluable worth of a great friend. If you’re in middle elementary school or middle school you will love this book. It provides those ages something to learn, but it’s wrapped alongside so much humor and fun that it will be irresistible to ages eight and up.

Looking Up is by New York Times Bestselling author Stephan Pastis and is available on Aladdin, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.

There are affiliate links in this post.