Echo

See why the audio won awards, because it creates all the music the characters play rather beautifully. I loved the three stories but the framing story was week and hopefully kids wouldn't get stuck there before moving into the much better stories. Definitely recommend the enhancement of the audio over simply reading the book!

This is another book I probably wouldn't have come across if not for the Bookriot challenge, since I read a lot of YA but not much middle grade. Like a lot of the other reviews say, this is one to listen to instead of read - a lot of the book focuses on the power of music, and being able to hear the music the characters are playing and reacting to makes a big difference than just reading the descriptions. I wasn't super-interested in the fairy tale-ish framing device, and some of the writing came off a little bit after-school-special, but each of the stories were interesting, and I found myself getting caught up in the plots and pleasantly surprised by how they all came together at the end.

(Bookriot Read Harder 2016 Challenge: #5 Read a middle grade novel, and #9 Listen to an audiobook that has won an Audie Award)