Up High in the Trees by Kiara Brinkman

I started this book last night and finished it this morning - a special thanks to Erin for the suggestion! The book's been on my "to read" shelf for months now and for some reason I just hadn't picked it up. Now I'm glad I did! I'd give it 5 out of 5 stars.

It's a story about a family who has recently experienced the loss of the mother/wife and an unborn child told by the eight year old son, Sebastian (Sebby). His perception of the event, and life following it, is at once enlightening and heart-wrenching. One of the questions in the reader's guide was particularly compelling to me: "How are we to understand Sebby's plunge into the water? Is it all impelled by his memory of his mother and her soap owl? Can his need to reconnect with his mother go this far?"

When Sebby jumps into the water to try and save the picture of his mother he has dropped (intentionally), I think it at once shows both his maturity and reminds us that he is just a little boy. On one hand, he understands that his Mother is gone, and he has put the picture in the water because he feels that is where she belongs and wanted to be. He is momentarily willing to give up this precious memento in order to honor her memory and what he believes to be her wish. However, once the picture starts floating to the bottom of the lake, the fact that he is a child takes over and he panicks, believing that he needs to rescue her. When he jumps in, it is both the retrieve the picture (which he is unable to do - one of the sadder moments in the book), and as a way to be closer to her. I think it is partially impelled by his memory of his mother's soap owl, but I also believe his need to reconnect with her does go that far. There are other moments in the book where all he wants is to be with her, and it is implied he understands that he would have to die too for that to be possible.

Although difficult to read at times because you just want to reach into the book and give the characters big hugs, experiencing such a situation through the eyes of this boy was something I won't soon forget. I think in the past when I've read the first few pages of the book I was turned off by its simplicity, but after completing it, I have a much deeper appreciation for that simplicity. It is what makes the book so powerful and compelling.