Told in the deeply affecting voice of an extraordinary eight-year-old boy, Up High in the Trees is a startling debut novel about a family in turmoil after a tragic loss.All who know young Sebby Lane understand that he is an unusual child in many respects - that he experiences the world around him more vividly than most, a condition that only intensifies after the death of his best friend: his mother. Sebby misses her so acutely that he begins to dream about and even relive moments of her life, retreating deeper into himself until he is almost inaccessible to his father and teenage siblings.In an effort to give them both the time and space they need to recover, Sebby's dad leaves his older children and takes Sebby to live in the family's summerhouse. But his father deteriorates in this new isolation, leaving Sebby to come to terms with his mother's death alone. Desperate for comfort and guidance, he reaches out to a favorite teacher back home in letters that reveal his private thoughts and fears as he struggles to understand his mother - both her life and her death - and is led to wonder if he, too, is meant to share her fate. Read Less