Echo
Ratings14
Average rating4.2
15
Ratings14
Average rating4.2
2016 Newbery Honor Book New York Times Bestseller An impassioned, uplifting, and virtuosic tour de force from a treasured storyteller! Lost and alone in a forbidden forest, Otto meets three mysterious sisters and suddenly finds himself entwined in a puzzling quest involving a prophecy, a promise, and a harmonica. Decades later, Friedrich in Germany, Mike in Pennsylvania, and Ivy in California each, in turn, become interwoven when the very same harmonica lands in their lives. All the children face daunting challenges: rescuing a father, protecting a brother, holding a family together. And ultimately, pulled by the invisible thread of destiny, their suspenseful solo stories converge in an orchestral crescendo. Richly imagined and masterfully crafted, Echo pushes the boundaries of genre, form, and storytelling innovation to create a wholly original novel that will resound in your heart long after the last note has been struck.
Reviews with the most likes.
There's no words to describe how beautiful and magnificent this book was.
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)
