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“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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Creators
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Publisher
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Awards
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Release date
April 21, 2020 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9780593155837
- File size: 265280 KB
- Duration: 09:12:39
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Languages
- English
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Levels
- Lexile® Measure: 690
- Text Difficulty: 3
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Reviews
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Starred review from March 2, 2020
A girl realizes her standout gifts as a healer in this exquisitely layered historical novel set in Depression-era Maine. After the financial crash forces a tight-knit family of five to move from town to build a cabin on Echo Mountain, a tree-felling accident puts 12-year-old narrator Ellie’s father into a coma. The family’s struggle to survive intensifies, made worse by fears about whether their beloved father—a tailor turned woodsman who, like Ellie, loves the wild—will ever awaken. Complex family dynamics loom large amid day-to-day matters: Ellie’s mother and sister long for their former life and blame Ellie for her father’s state; Ellie, who discovers a gift for healing, further upsets them by trying to startle her father awake. When a dog leads Ellie to “the hag,” a woman who knows about cures and is herself suffering, the girl lends a hand, resulting in further
tensions, this time within the interconnected mountain
community.
Via strongly sketched cabin-life cadences and memorable, empathic characterizations—including, perhaps most vividly, of the wilderness itself—Newbery Honoree Wolk (Wolf Hollow) builds a powerful, well-paced portrait of interconnectedness, work and learning, and strength in a time of crisis. Ages 10–up. -
Holly Linneman's narration carries listeners into the whirlwind of 12-year-old Ellie's life. First, Ellie's family is disrupted when the Great Depression forces a move to the Maine woods; then their lives are torn apart when an accident leaves her father in a coma. Linneman defines Ellie's heartbreaking willingness to take responsibility for her family's survival even when it casts her in a bad light. Ellie is just starting to feel at home on the mountain when she meets Cate, an elderly woman who is ill, and her grandson, Larkin. Linneman's balanced depiction of Cate's wisdom, saltiness, and courage counterbalances her portrayal of Ellie's initial confusions and, later, her developing trust in her instinctive knowledge of healing. Linneman adds power to the author's evocative prose. S.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine
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