I recently read the book Echo by Pam Muñoz Ryan. The story follows a harmonica as it travels through several generations across the Atlantic Ocean from Germany to Pennsylvania to California. The harmonica has five different owners across that time, who all go through struggles of their own. Eins, Zwei, and Drei are trapped, only able to watch their fairy tale, or the harmonica's tale, play out for them. Otto is only touched on briefly, but we know that he has to save someone's life with the instrument. Friedrich is living in Nazi Germany, and lives with his sisters support for the Nazi Party and his father's aversion to the government. Michael lives in an orphanage, and Ivy lives in a broken family, worrying if her neighbors could be Japanese spies.
The story is long but moves quickly. It pulls you in to each character, and strategically placed cliffhangers keep you from putting the book down for very long. Instead, the book stays in your hands for most of the time you take to read it. I really enjoyed the story. Pam Muñoz Ryan did a wonderful job entwining the tales of unlikely candidates, building up to the (SPOILER) perfect, happy ending. If Muñoz Ryan ended this with another one of her tricky cliffhangers, I would be upset. I give this book 4.5 out of five stars, and that's pretty good by my standards.
1 Star- Terrible
2 Stars- One good thing happened
3 Stars- Decent
4 Stars- Good
5 Stars- Amazing
If I enjoyed a book, it's a four, if it is anything else, it's exceptional to me.
Love and Luck,
Pippa Liber
No comments:
Post a Comment