I’ve been working my way through this year’s award winners, and Echo, by Pam Munoz Ryan, has been sitting on my shelf for a while, mostly because I read it aloud to my 4-year-old twins. We had to do it in tiny little pieces, because they don’t sit still for more than about thirty pages. Which I suppose is still pretty good for a 4-year-old.
Echo was a lovely story that covered so many issues: the prejudice against Mexican Americans back during World War II, what happened to Japanese Americans after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the prejudice against Germans who were born with what the government called defects, and the fate of children who were orphaned in the trying financial times that cropped up during the war. Like I said, it was a wonderfully loaded book.
It was broken into three parts: one part that told the story of Friedrich, a German with a birthmark. Part two told the story of Mike Flannery and his kid brother, who were both orphans. Part three told the story of Ivy Maria, a Mexican American. All three of the stories were engaging and entertaining.
The book was unusually long for a middle grade read, and I could have seen the three parts broken into separate books, but because Ryan wrote the stories in a way that not only made readers love and care about her characters but also brought history to light in a masterful way, the book didn’t feel long. Ryan linked all the stories together by using music—Friedrich wanted to be a conductor, Mike played the harmonica, and Ivy Maria learned to play the flute.
Echo begins alluringly with a story about three princesses caught in shadow form, which makes you want to keep reading, because it begins almost like a fairy tale. Ryan builds the historic story around that fairy-tale—as if there is something linking the princesses in the story to the characters in the book. And it becomes clear that what links them is a harmonica—the princesses live in the music of a harmonica that every child in every part will find and use.
By bringing the story of the three princesses into the beginning of her book, Ryan ensures that readers will want to continue reading. But even without the princess story, one would have been hooked by Ryan’s language.
The first part begins in Germany, where Friedrich works in a harmonica factory. One day he finds a harmonica far superior than all the others, and he pockets it. Friedrich and his father are being targeted by the Nazis, because Friedrich’s father is an outspoken man. Friedrich has a birthmark on his face, and the Germans want to collect him and put him in an asylum. But his father won’t allow it. When his father is taken away by the Nazis, Friedrich has to figure out how to get him back.
Friedrich’s description of the world after he’s found out he’s going into an asylum was endearing:
“The rhythm of Tchaikovsky’s waltz took hold again. Looking back across Father’s shoulder, he lifted an imaginary baton with his good arm and conducted.
“When the wind brushed his face, Friedrich felt a lightness—a weightlessness—as if bit by bit, the dread and worry that always burdened him were taking flight.
“Had Father not been holding him, he too might have floated away on the wind, like a dandelion’s white-seeded parachutes.”
I love that Friedrich finds his hope and comfort in music. When the world is crumbling around him, he can always find refuge in the music.
One of the things I enjoyed most about Ryan’s book was all the points where music came into play. The people find their feet in the midst of war because of the beauty of music. And music does that to people—when a world is dark, music lends a bit of light.
When Friedrich finds the harmonic and plays it, it makes the most beautiful music he has ever heard. Its music seems to be alive—healing, in a way, as if all the terror and disappointment he has in his life melts away with just one note.
Here’s how he describes what the harmonica feels like in his pocket:
“With every step up from the front walk, it seemed to thump against his chest, like a heartbeat.”
It’s as if the harmonica gives him a new reason to go on. The music keeps him grounded and helps him persevere through even greater challenges that will come.
Here, Friedrich’s father is talking to his daughter, who has just told him that the music of negros—jazz—is considered degenerate by the Nazis:
“‘Music does not have a race or a disposition!’ said Father. ‘Every instrument has a voice that contributes. Music is a universal language. A universal religion of sorts. Certainly it’s my religion. Music surpasses all distinctions between people.’”
I absolutely love this sentiment: that though the world may have a hard time not seeing the differences in race and color and belief, music wipes all of that way.
Later, when Friedrich goes up to his room, he can still hear his father and his sister, Elisabeth, arguing. Here’s what he says about it:
“In the broken chords, he heard the rhythm of Father and Elisabeth’s argument. The alternating notes—their banter back and forth—rose and fell. The music was precise as their conversation had been brittle. As the piece progressed, he felt the gathering tension wind tighter and tighter, like unspoken anxiety. After the movement, a sadness lingered, unresolved.”
Part Two told the story of Mike Flannery and his kid brother. Mike was taught piano by his grandmother, but when she died, he and his brother were sent to an orphanage. Their grandmother specified that they must be adopted together, but there’s a strong possibility that it won’t happen—and then someone shows up looking for a musical boy.
Before Mike is taken to the home of a potential foster parent, he’s talking with one of the 16-year-old boys in the orphanage, who tells him:
“‘Everybody has a heart. Sometimes you gotta work hard to find it. One thing I learned is that if there’s something you want or need to know from grown folks, you gotta step up and ask for it mannerly. Plead your case, that’s what I say. More times than naught, you’ll get exactly what you asked for.”
I love the wisdom in this statement, wisdom that comes through the hard experiences of life.
Mr. Potter, who is a servant at the home where Mike and his brother are taken at one point, turns the song “Twinkle Twinkle” into a blues song with a harmonica. Mike asks him how, and this is what Mr. Potter says:
“‘Easy.” Mr. Potter grinned. ‘You take the tune and break it up. Then do over some of the lines. Then sprinkle in some grit from your insides. You play the song like you’re testifying to the feeling you hold in your heart: happy, sad, angry.’”
It’s a great description of the blues.
The woman who is considering adoption of Mike and his brother is a hard woman to get to know. At one point, Mike thinks she’s going to try to get out of the adoption, and he urges her to at last keep his brother, because he can figure out what to do with himself. He tells her:
“‘Mrs. Potter said you were a kind and loving soul, underneath all the rest. I guess that means your heart’s so sad that it’s hard to get out from under the weight. When I was sad about my mother dying, Granny used to say grief is the heaviest thing to carry alone. So I know all about that.’”
I love Mike’s perspective on grief. One of my favorite things about kid-lit is how much truth is contained in the innocent observations of its characters. It’s true that grief is heaviest when we carry it alone.
Part Three of Echo is about Ivy Maria, who is a Mexican American. Her family is very poor, but her father gets a new job on a farm that belongs to a Japanese family who was put in an internment camp, which happened to many Japanese Americans after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. One of the owner’s neighbors wants to prove that he and his families were Japanese spies so the farm will be given to the government and someone else might purchase it. There were so many emotional issues raised in this section of the story: the death of a loved one during a war, the unjust treatment of the Japanese during that time, the unjust treatment of the Mexican Americans or, really, anyone who was from a different race.
When her father told her that their family would be leaving her old school for his new job, Ivy Maria remembered the image of her best friend this way:
“Ivy tried to etch the image into her mind: her best friend, wearing a matching purple hat, waving and blowing kisses to her. She blew kisses in return and pretended they were not the beginning of good-bye.”
This passage was so endearing, because Ivy Maria has left many of her friends behind, because her family is sort of nomadic, as were many Mexican Americans during that time. Ivy Maria captures the pain of children who had to leave their friends and lives behind.
Ivy Maria is a little angry at her father for moving their family yet again:
“Better. Papa was always looking for a place called Better. Once, this place, Fresno, had been better. Now it was nothing more than the last place she’d lived.”
This stuck out to me, because it’s always human nature to pursue Better. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad, and it’s always hard to know which it is. Ivy Maria is angry about it right now, but she might learn, once the worst happens–the move–that it’s not as bad as she thought.
Echo was a book full of history, lovable characters, and unforgettable stories tucked within a larger Story.
