Look Up

by Azul López, Shook (Translator)

Overview

From the beloved illustrator of Giant on the Shore, a dreamy retelling of a Mexican legend about the other world that exists right in front of us, if only we slow down and look.

Many, many years ago, a man was immensely curious about the sky, his curiosity as big as the sky itself. He would spend all day looking up, his eyes reflecting clouds or stars. But as time went on, his gaze was brought to earth, and he joined his neighbors in looking down, putting one foot in front of the other—until the passing days became a mysterious labyrinth that opened before him, leading him somewhere secret.

With the power of a myth and the finesse of a watercolor, Look Up opens up the worlds within worlds that only careful attention can reveal. Award-winning author and artist Azul López welcomes us into subtle and immersive acrylic paintings in a tale of wonder lost and found, and of the courage required to turn one’s gaze in another direction.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798893380446
Publisher:	Transit Books
Publication date:	11/18/2025
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Age Range:	3 - 8 Years

About the Author

Azul López is a Mexican illustrator of books for children and young adults, including Giant on the Shore and Look Up, both published by Transit Children’s Editions. She is the winner of the 2017 National Poster Contest, and her work has been selected for the IX Ibero–American Illustration Catalog. She is also the recipient of the International Illustration Bologna Children’s Book Fair-Fundación SM award.

Editorial Reviews

Praise for Look Up:

"Children will empathize with the protagonist, torn between following his personal longing and going with the group mentality. Sensitively translated from Spanish, López’s text provides an elegant accompaniment to the author/illustrator’s arresting art. A story that feeds the spirit."—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"López’s impressionistic paintings emphasize human smallness against nature’s vastness in this ruminative story about…the birds scatter across pages like multicolored confetti in this soaring celebration of the virtues of looking up."—Publishers Weekly

"Warm hues and soft, multiplying details mark the rich illustrations...jarring audiences from complacency to bring attention back to the natural world."—Foreword Reviews, Starred Review

Praise for Giant on the Shore:

“Giant on Shore perfectly captures the ennui specific to the enormous... These are dreams drawn from the subconscious, realized by [Azul López], suitable for study by children awake to the surreal and the sublime.”—Dave Eggers, The New York Times

“Young readers will relate to the emotions felt by both the narrator and the giant as they ponder the potential pros and cons of jumping into a new experience. Intricate, painterly illustrations beautifully capture the potential journey taken by the giant. López plays adeptly with perspective, making the city and its residents appear even smaller while the physical and existential presence of the giant looms larger… A glorious look at the potential benefits and vulnerabilities of a new possibility.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

From the Publisher

★ 2025-07-19
Originally published in Spain, a meditation on the rewards of pausing to notice beauty in one’s surroundings.

Clad in white work clothes, a straw hat at his side, a brown-skinned man with “an enormous curiosity about the sky” sits in the grass gazing above at the pale blue expanse, overlaid with cottony clouds. On the right-hand side of this double-page spread, a parade of workers dressed like him march into the distance. Eventually, the crew begin working, ignoring their comrade. Lush, textured, pastoral scenes, rendered in oil, pastel, charcoal, and colored pencil, give way to images of tiny figures creating skeletal structures. Amid his peers’ indifference, the protagonist’s curiosity “wither[s],” and he joins the others. A dramatic composition of bodies silhouetted against a full moon gives way to a parallel scene of a huge, circular hole in the ground, which the main character stumbles upon. Something stirs within, and he emits a primal scream into the black abyss. In a marvel of colorful, pointillistic patterns, thousands of birds emerge, moving in clusters across the pages, their music and “windstorm” enticing the laborers to look up. An endnote explains that this phenomenon happens daily in Mexico’s Cave of Swallows. Children will empathize with the protagonist, torn between following his personal longing and going with the group mentality. Sensitively translated from Spanish, López’s text provides an elegant accompaniment to the author/illustrator’s arresting art.

A story that feeds the spirit.(Picture book. 5-8)

Kirkus Reviews