Echo, a review by Terrie

Review of story in verse - Echo by Terrie

Beginning in the “long ago and far away,” one harmonica becomes the tie through time between three characters who find their own magic through hope and persistence.  The story begins as a fantasy that includes the harmonica with magic sound, a young boy lost in the woods and three mysterious sisters who need the young boy and the harmonica to save them.  In Germany, during Hitler’s rise, the harmonica shows up again for Friedrich, then for Mike in the depression era U.S., and for Ivy, a young immigrant working on a Japanese owned California farm at the beginning of WWII.  Each young person fights what seems to be an unwinnable battle, and cliffhangers abound. The musical connection of each of these characters and the harmonica is its own magic.

Munoz has  wonderful characters in these three young people.  Her phrasing and descriptions of the main characters as well as their families are almost music in themselves.  The classification of this book as a fantasy seems to be a stretch, though.  The fantasy begins the book and ends it, but doesn’t exist at all for most of it. The stories each stop abruptly in a way that almost seem forced, resuming at the end in a “too neat” ending.  Having read the book, then listened to it in audio form, I cannot highly enough recommend the audio version.  The inclusion of the actual music into the story elevates it from simple prose to real poetry for the mind and ears. 

 

 

Ryan, P. M. (2015). Echo. New York: Scholastic Press.