Look Up!

"Look Up! by Nathan Bryon and Dapo Adeola This is just a great book, because it has themes around dreaming, being what you can, what you want to be, dreaming big, having ambition and being excited about what’s important to you. Rocket, the main character, is excited about space and she engages with her community to try to get them all to come along to the park to look at the meteor shower. Yes, and you can almost imagine her movement through the book, the way the book is illustrated, it’s a really dynamic illustration. Her enthusiasm jumps out of the page at you. And I love the depiction of her brother, who’s got his nose in his mobile phone the whole time. And so that kind of dual meaning of look up in the title: Rocket wants everybody to look at the sky. But she’s also said to her brother and to the other people around, you’re missing so much by not paying attention to what’s around you. That message around get outside, go and look at what’s there and dream about what you might do, is fantastic. And then towards the end of the book when everybody else has gone home because they think the meteor shower isn’t going to happen, her brother suddenly sees what she’s trying to do, empathises with her, puts his phone down, and they experience the joy of watching the meteor shower together. It’s about sibling love. It’s about dreaming. It’s about helping people see the world around them. There is so much in this book. And it’s very current. I just think it’s a beautiful book. That was a real favourite with the book selection committee when we saw this one. Yes, she’s a girl you’d like to have around, an appealing character."