Up! Up! Up! Skyscraper

Up! Up! Up! Skyscraper
by Anastasia Suen (Author) and Ryan O’Rourke (Illustrator)

Booktalk: Snappy rhymes invite young readers to watch workers dig, pour, pound, and bolt a skyscraper into existence. Simple yet satisfying sidebars provide further information about each step in the construction process. Perfect for preschoolers and all those who dig diggers.

When my “building a house” small poem became the Raise the Roof picture book, I thought I was done with construction books, but my architect husband was working on a skyscraper and that made me curious! How did they make tall buildings stand up straight? (The Tower of Pisa is leaning to one side!)

This question led to more and with his expert advice, a new small poem became the picture book Up! Up! Up! Skyscraper! My clever editor wanted the last page of the book to fold up into a completed skyscraper, so the facts aren’t in the back after the poem like so many other books. As you can see, the facts (and lots of labels) written in prose accompany the poem page by page.

I’m very happy to say that this book won the 2017 Eureka! Nonfiction Children’s Book Award.

Eureka

It’s #ThrowbackThursday!
Copyright © 2026 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved. (*bookstore affiliate)

Bestselling Author Now #kidlit Agent

The Handspun Literary webpage says: “Justina Ireland (she/they) joined Handspun in 2026 as a junior agent. She is also an award winning and New York Times bestselling author of numerous books as well as a writer of both comics and television.”

The agency submissions page also says: “She loves meticulous worldbuilding and complicated characters and is currently looking for well executed speculative fiction in most categories. She is drawn to Middle Grade and Young Adult that asks complicated questions without talking down to a reader.”

Check her author website to see more about her writing.

Copyright © 2026 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.