Review by New York Times Review
SO, THE HARMONICA. We can probably all picture one in the hands of some 4-year-old, pressed to the child's lips as she makes a wheezy, buzzy racket. Or being played by a convict in an old jailhouse movie as he lies on his bunk. But it's not a serious instrument, not something you'd associate with real music. Or with words like magic, power or beauty. After reading Pam Muñoz Ryan's enchanting new novel, you'll never think of a harmonica the same way again. In "Echo," a harmonica travels across years and over continents and seas to touch the lives of three embattled, music-obsessed children - and, quite possibly, save a life. Twelve-year-old Friedrich, growing up in Germany during the years of Hitler's rise to power, dreams of being a conductor. While in the street or in the school-yard, he cannot stop his hands from flying upward to guide a music only he can hear. By itself, such behavior singles him out. But Friedrich would never pass unnoticed, because of the birthmark that covers half his face, branding him as an undesirable and earning him the nickname Monster Boy. While preparing for his audition at the conservatory, Friedrich happens upon a mysterious harmonica. Playing it, he gains strength and courage. But as each day brings some new threat, the chances of Friedrich achieving his dream, or even keeping his family together, grow more and more faint. Two years later, the harmonica has passed to Mike Flannery in Pennsylvania. It's the depths of the Great Depression, and Mike, 11 years old and almost six feet tall, lives in the Bishop's Home for Friendless and Destitute Children with his younger brother, Frankie. When Mike and Frankie are adopted by the wealthy Mrs. Sturbridge, they leap from squalor to luxury. But it soon becomes clear that she doesn't want them, and the brothers are to be split up and sent away. Mike strikes a deal with Mrs. Sturbridge. If he wins a spot in a famous harmonica orchestra (yes, there was such a thing, I checked), he will leave, and Mrs. Sturbridge will keep Frankie with her rather than sending him to a state home. The final story focuses on Ivy Lopez, whose family has been working as migrant farm laborers in California. It's a year after Pearl Harbor, and Ivy and her family arrive to manage a farm in Orange County whose Japanese-American owners, the Yamamotos, have been sent to an internment camp. In her new home, Ivy encounters institutional racism as she and the other Latino children are forced to attend a separate school with an "Americanization" program. As the newest owner of the harmonica, Ivy, too, finds refuge and strength in its music. But soon enough, her family's ties to the Yamamotos put them in crisis, and Ivy finds herself keeping what she fears is a terrible secret. Long before the three stories came together in the book's last, triumphant section, I'd been won over by the complex, largehearted characters Muñoz Ryan has created and the virtues - bravery, tolerance, kindness - that the novel espouses. But Muñoz Ryan - the author of the much-loved "Esperanza Rising" and "The Dreamer" - is also a writer who cares about sentences. When Friedrich, preparing to leave his childhood home, plays his town a lullaby on the harmonica, "he swayed, as if cradling Trossingen and its half-timbered houses." Mike Flannery's responsibility for his younger brother "had become another layer of skin. Just when he thought he might shed a little, or breathe easy, or even laugh out loud, it tightened over him." Start to finish, the book is a joy to read. It's not without flaws, though. There is a confusing frame story of three fairy-tale sisters and a lost boy; and while I'm all for the fusion of the magical world and the real one, that fusion is never fully realized in "Echo." The fairy-tale element feels like an appendage, detracting from the reality and emotional heft of the children's stories. And while Muñoz Ryan builds the stories with great skill, climaxes don't seem to interest her. What should be the critical moment of Friedrich's story happens essentially off-screen. And both Mike's and Ivy's stories hinge on O. Henry-esque twists, which retroactively cancel out any peril we might have felt. But I always found myself eager to return to the book and the characters I had come to love. And what else really matters? The music swells, the book sings. JOHN STEPHENS is the author of "The Emerald Atlas" and "The Fire Chronicle." The final novel in the trilogy, "The Black Reckoning," will be published in April.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [March 15, 2015]
Review by Booklist Review
When Otto meets three ethereal sisters, he has no idea that the harmonica they enchant will one day save a life. Decades later, the very same harmonica makes its way to America, and in three sections, Ryan tells the stories of kids whose lives are changed by its music: Friedrich Schmidt, in 1933 Germany, whose father is a Jewish sympathizer; Mike Finnegan, an orphan in Philadelphia in 1935; and Ivy Lopez, living with her parents in California in 1942 while they take care of the farm of a Japanese family who has been sent to an internment camp. The magical harmonica not only helps each of the three discover their inborn musical talents but also gives them the courage to face down adversity and injustice. Though the fairy tale-like prologue and conclusion seem a bit tacked on, Ryan nonetheless builds a heartening constellation of stories around the harmonica, and the ultimate message that small things can have a powerful destiny is resoundingly hopeful. Harmonica tabs are included for readers who want to try their hands at the instrument.--Hunter, Sarah Copyright 2015 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
The fairy tale that opens this elegant trio of interconnected stories from Ryan (The Dreamer) sets the tone for the rest of the book, in which a mystical harmonica brings together three children growing up before and during WWII. Friedrich, an aspiring conductor whose birthmark makes him an undesirable in Nazi Germany, must try to rescue his father after his Jewish sympathies land him in a prison camp. In Pennsylvania, piano prodigy Mike and his brother, Frankie, get a chance to escape the orphanage for good, but only if they can connect with the eccentric woman who has adopted them. In California, Ivy Maria struggles with her school's segregation as well as the accusations leveled against Japanese landowners who might finally offer her family a home of their own. Each individual story is engaging, but together they harmonize to create a thrilling whole. The book's thematic underpinnings poignantly reveal what Friedrich, Mike, and Ivy truly have in common: not just a love of music, but resourcefulness in the face of change, and a refusal to accept injustice. Ages 10-14. Agent: Kendra Marcus, BookStop Literary Agency. (Feb.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 5-8-"Long before enchantment was eclipsed by doubt," a young boy named Otto lost in the woods is rescued by three sisters imprisoned there by a witch's curse. In return, he promises to help break the curse by carrying their spirits out of the forest in a mouth harp and passing the instrument along when the time is right. The narrative shifts to the 20th century, when the same mouth harp (aka harmonica) becomes the tangible thread that connects the stories of three children: Friedrich, a disfigured outcast; Mike, an impoverished orphan; and Ivy, an itinerant farmer's child. Their personal struggles are set against some of the darkest eras in human history: Friedrich, the rise of Nazi Germany; Mike, the Great Depression; Ivy, World War II. The children are linked by musical talent and the hand of fate that brings Otto's harmonica into their lives. Each recognizes something unusual about the instrument, not only its sound but its power to fill them with courage and hope. Friedrich, Mike, and Ivy are brought together by music and destiny in an emotionally triumphant conclusion at New York's Carnegie Hall. Meticulous historical detail and masterful storytelling frame the larger history, while the story of Otto and the cursed sisters honor timeless and traditional folktales. Ryan has created three contemporary characters who, through faith and perseverance, write their own happy endings, inspiring readers to believe they can do the same.-Marybeth Kozikowski, Sachem Public Library, Holbrook, NY (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
Lost in the forest, a boy is mesmerized by a story about three princesses trapped under a witch's spell until they save a life through a special harmonica. This story within a story is prelude to a set of three more: young Friedrich, working in a harmonica factory in 1933 Germany, watches as his sister joins the Hitler Youth and his father endangers the family by speaking out against the Nazis, sending Friedrich on a desperate plan of rescue. Two orphaned brothers with musical talent in 1935 Pennsylvania struggle to stay together, resting their hopes on a rich widow and a traveling harmonica band. In 1942 California, Ivy Lopez's family takes over the farm of an interned Japanese family, where Ivy finds herself for the first time in a segregated school. She strives to bring three families together -- white, Latino, and Japanese American -- who all have sons in the armed forces. Ryan fluidly builds setting, character, and drama for each story and then leaves each on a knife's edge; the expected yet compelling epilogue winds all stories together, on one splendid postwar night at Carnegie Hall. The harmonica and the love of music serve as the unifying threads for these tales of young people who save the lives and spirits of their families and neighbors, each in a time marked by bigotry and violence. It's an ambitious device, but Ryan's storytelling prowess and vivid voice lead readers expertly through a hefty tome illuminated by layers of history, adventure, and the seemingly magical but ultimately very human spirit of music. nina lindsay (c) Copyright 2015. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A multilayered novel set in turbulent times explores music's healing power. Sweeping across years and place, Ryan's full-bodied story is actually five stories that take readers from an enchanted forest to Germany, Pennsylvania, Southern California and finally New York City. Linking the stories is an ethereal-sounding harmonica first introduced in the fairy-tale beginning of the book and marked with a mysterious M. In Nazi Germany, 12-year-old Friedrich finds the harmonica in an abandoned building; playing it fills him with the courage to attempt to free his father from Dachau. Next, the harmonica reaches two brothers in an orphanage in Depression-era Pennsylvania, from which they are adopted by a mysterious wealthy woman who doesn't seem to want them. Just after the United States enters World War II, the harmonica then makes its way to Southern California in a box of used instruments for poor children; as fifth-grader Ivy Lopez learns to play, she discovers she has exceptional musical ability. Ryan weaves these stories together, first, with the theme of musicsymbolized by the harmonicaand its ability to empower the disadvantaged and discriminated-against, and then, at the novel's conclusion, as readers learn the intertwined fate of each story's protagonist. A grand narrative that examines the power of music to inspire beauty in a world overrun with fear and intolerance, it's worth every moment of readers' time. (Historical fiction. 9-14) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
