Going Up!

An elevator ride can be an adventure and a puzzle in this sunny, lighthearted picture book. Sophie and Leonard (“Dad”) are invited to Olive’s birthday party on the tenth floor of their building, and so they bake special cookies according to a family recipe. Wearing their smartest, they get in the elevator. Ding! Going up! At each floor, a different group of friendly neighbors gets into the elevator, all dressed up and holding a gift, until everyone is squeezed together as tight as can be. When they finally reach the tenth floor, Olive the birthday poodle greets them in the decorated party room and everyone has a lovely time, eating cake and dancing to music, and enjoying each others’ company.

For someone in this pandemic time, Going Up! reads as an incredibly nostalgic book. We no longer squeeze cheerfully into elevators with our neighbors, nor do we share food in quite the same carefree way we used to. Nevertheless, the straightforward text and jubilant illustrations work together to create a wonderfully happy book. The storyline is simple and repetitive: we go up--and up--and up. At each floor, there is a repetition of “ding! Going up!” before we are treated to the sight of the next resident. At the tenth floor, the folded grey pages open out like elevator doors to reveal everyone shouting happy birthday to Olive and her human, Francesca.

Throughout, there is a secondary storyline in the illustrations about a saucy marmalade cat who steals one of Sophie’s ribbons, joins the group in the elevator to attend the party, steals a feather off Vi Tweedle’s hat, and leaves with a wink to spend the remainder of the night outside in the garbage cans.

Going Up! is a subtle work, thoughtfully made, but, at first glance, it looks simple because the text is so direct as to be blunt (see the excerpts above). There are many details that are not spelled out in the text that readers have to figure out for themselves, or imagine, and many of these subtleties are in the illustrations. For instance, Francesca’s name does not appear anywhere except in the initial party invitation, and Olive’s canine identity is foreshadowed in the shape of the cookies Sophie bakes as just one of them is shaped like a dog biscuit.

While the text does not go into great detail about Sophie’s neighbors, the illustrations reflect the enormous range of diversity that can exist within the group of residents of a single building; diversity that is not limited to race or ethnicity but includes lifestyles, disabilities, family types and gender expression. The residents are black, white, latinx, east asian, etc. The Santucci brothers dress like bikers but hold a hand-knitted kitty puppet and have knitting tattoos (“purl”). There’s Mr. and Mrs. Habib in traditional garb with gulab jamun to share (I think they are Pakistani, but I may be wrong) and their grandchildren, Yasmin and Jamal, who are wearing matching superhero costumes. One of the Flores children has a male name and is wearing a skirt. Vicki and Babs are holding hands and share a dog. Are they a biracial lesbian couple? Good friends and flatmates? Does it matter which? Sophie’s refrigerator pictures are only of Dad; are they a single-parent household? Francesca’s being in a wheelchair is a non-issue because it has nothing to do with Olive’s birthday party. You could blink and miss many of these details, or you could quietly appreciate seeing someone like yourself. I find it immeasurably refreshing to see no lessons about diversity or multiculturalism being delivered here. These folks are diverse because they are each unique, and they do not need any inclusion or acceptance because they already belong. The neighbors are simply gathering to have a good time. They know one another already and are on friendly terms. The unselfconscious vibe reminds me of Ezra Jack Keats’ The Snowy Day.

The soft-colored watercolor and pencil crayon drawings in Going Up! are both warm and bright, well-suited to the atmosphere of the story, and there are playful details such as each floor number being used as a decorative motif in the hallways. It would be a wonderful storytime book to read to a small group, followed by an energetic performance of the “Elevator Song” (“...We take the elevator UP, take the elevator DOWN, take the elevator UP, take the elevator DOWN!!”).