Echo Mountain
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Average rating4.6
★ “Historical fiction at its finest.” –The Horn Book “There has never been a better time to read about healing, of both the body and the heart.” –The New York Times Book Review Echo Mountain is an acclaimed best book of 2020! An NPR Best Book of the Year • A Horn Book Fanfare Selection • A Kirkus Best Book of the Year • A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year • A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year • A Chicago Public Library Best Book of the Year After losing almost everything in the Great Depression, Ellie’s family is forced to leave their home in town and start over in the untamed wilderness of nearby Echo Mountain. Ellie has found a welcome freedom, and a love of the natural world, in her new life on the mountain. But there is little joy after a terrible accident leaves her father in a coma. An accident unfairly blamed on Ellie. Ellie is a girl who takes matters into her own hands, and determined to help her father she will make her way to the top of the mountain in search of the healing secrets of a woman known only as “the hag.” But the hag, and the mountain, still have many untold stories left to reveal. Historical fiction at its finest, Echo Mountain is celebration of finding your own path and becoming your truest self. Lauren Wolk, the Newbery Honor– and Scott O'Dell Award–winning author of Wolf Hollow and Beyond the Bright Sea, weaves a stunning tale of resilience, persistence, and friendship across three generations of families. “Soothing and exquisitely written.” –People “This is a book that will soothe readers like a healing balm.” –The Wall Street Journal “Brilliant.” –Lynda Mullaly Hunt, bestselling author of Fish in a Tree
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you know how it feels when the sun hits you in the right spot? that's how this book felt.
Ellie and her parents and sister and brother have left the town to live on Echo Mountain. It's the time of the Great Depression and everyone is struggling. Ellie and her father adapt well to life on the mountain but Ellie's mother and sister long for their old lives back in town. A terrible accident happens and everything changes again, and now Ellie must learn by doing how to put her healing gifts to work to help others.
This is a beautiful story of growth and change, of love and caring, of hurt and healing. The writing is poetical and fresh. I feel oddly reenergized after reading this story.
Some of my favorite quotes from the book:
“The things we need to learn to do, we learn to do by doing.”
“There aren't many hurts that a sky meadow full of clean white blossoms can't make at least a little better.”
“Maybe she'll wake up soon and come back to what she used to be...or what she'll be next.”
“I wish you could have been with me these past weeks,”I whispered.“To watch what happened.”Though much of it would have been different, had he been well.My father smiled at me, his eyes full of sun in the shadowy room. “I see it all very clearly,” he said. “I see it in every bit of the girl you've become.”
Great for readers who enjoy the possibly-tedious details of old-timey life! (I am one of those readers!) Some of the medical details might be a bit much for the squeamish! (I am the squeamish!) For a book that started with such big thorny feelings I did feel like it resolved a bit too neatly but EH we all could use more happy endings.
