Stories That Echo Through Your Heart

I want to write this post with as much zeal as I put into explaining and recommending to my mom that she read the middle grade book, Echo by Pam Muñoz Ryan.  So, imagine this as an impassioned monologue as to why anyone should read this story.

The prologue reads like a fairy tale.  It begins with a boy named Otto, who gets lost in the woods and happens upon three sisters under a witch's spell. The sisters entwine their lives with the boys by taking his harmonica and each in turn blowing a note.  They tell him that the harmonica will bring him much happiness, but in time he must let it go so that it may pass on to someone else who needs it.  This harmonica will find its way into the hands of three young people who make quite heart-wrenching stories. 

The book contains the stories of Friedrich, Mike, and Ivy.  To save time, I will cover Friedrich's story and let you read the rest of the book.  

Friedrich's story takes place during the rise of Hitler.  It was fascinating to read a story from the point of view of a German family that did not support Hitler.  Friedrich's loves are symphony and his harmonica.  Freidrich's dream is to be a conductor.  His father encourages this love by asking him to play his harmonica, taking him to concerts and after retirement from the music world, hosting chamber concerts at their house.

Friedrich and his father receive quite a shock when his sister comes home for a short stay and informs them she has joined the League of German Girls.  Friedrich's father decides that they will lie to his sister and pretend they sympathize with Hitler's cause because Friedrich's father would do anything to protect his children.  

During an impromptu chamber concert where his father gets into trouble for being a suspected Jew lover and is sent to Dachau.  Friedrich and his uncle plan to rescue his father and run away from Germany.

The plan is for Friedrich to deliver bribe money to the commandant of Dachau so that his father may be released and then they will meet up with his uncle several days later.  The day of, Friedrich acts like it is a normal day at work, but realizes he kept his harmonica is his pocket even though he was told not to take any valuables with him to Dachau.  He then places his beloved harmonica in a shipment bound for America, hoping it will find a new loving owner.  Friedrich boards the train on his way to Dachau only to be removed by the same police who took his father away.  Part 1 ends...yes, it ends there.

Two more intriguing stories to become involved in and then the very end ties it together.

Bravo, Pam Muñoz Ryan, bravo.

Esperanza “hope”

Pura Belpré Award Winner

Recommended for grades 4-7

Why, oh, why, did I wait this long to read Esperanza Rising?! Pam Muñoz Ryan is brilliant with her prose and her characters are so real and as a reader I connected with Esperanza—sometimes feeling my heart twist and other times, becoming flustered with her attitude. Yet, I was able to reel back and recognize that her ignorance at the life led by field workers was because she had only known a life of privilege. For Esperanza to go through such tragedy in a book and yet make it through all of it being that much stronger a person is inspiring. Then to read Ryan’s author’s note and realize that these events were loosely based off her grandmother’s life makes the story just that much more passionate.

In the beginning, Esperanza has it all on her Mexican homestead—loving parents who dote on her, servants, Abuelita by her side, a fine education, close friends, and a magnificent land and house to live. This all suddenly changes when her Papa is killed and her selfish uncles arrange for her house and the grapes that supply her family’s income to be burned to the ground. Thank goodness for Hortensia and Alfonso, who help Esperanza and Ramona, her mother, escape to California with them. Though, Esperanza does not appreciate the small miracles and kindnesses granted to her at first.

Once they reach the workers camp, Esperanza must adjust to the conditions of one who is poor. She is laughed at in the beginning for being ignorant of such simple things as knowing how to sweep. But, soon, Esperanza is taking care of household business for her adoptive extended family—Mama, Hortensia, Alfonso, Miguel (her lifelong friend), Juan, Josefina, Isabel and the twins (Juan and Josefina’s children). Once Mama falls sick and must be taken to the hospital, Esperanza realizes that she needs to work in the shed/fields to bring in the money to support her family and bring Abuelita to her Mama.

The historical aspect of the novel plays out with the field workers, when some simply want to keep their jobs to feed their families and others want to strike because of the unfair working conditions. In fact, the striking workers turn against the others by slipping in rats and razors in the crates of fruits or vegetables the women are to pack. Things come to a head, when the lane owners send immigration services to ship all the Hispanics back to Mexico—even if they’ve never been to Mexico because they are U.S. born citizens.

There is a delightful, yet tense friendship between Miguel and Esperanza that one realizes has slowly bloomed into a romance after the most gracious gesture Miguel bestows upon Esperanza of going back to Mexico and retrieving her Abuelita. This, of course made me cry for the rest of the novel. The story ends on a high note with Esperanza passing down Abuelita’s words of wisdom, “Do not ever be afraid to start over.”

Ryan, P. M. (2000). Esperanza rising. New York, NY: Scholastic.

When The Rain Is King

Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction

Grades 5-8

I like learning about history through children's and young adult books--it's easier for me to learn about certain aspects of historical events that way. So, I just finished reading Matt Phelan’s graphic novel, The Storm in the Barn, which takes place in a farming town during the Great Depression. The colors of the illustrations set the reader in the hazy atmosphere of the Dust Bowl—brown, yellow, orange, gray and black. The story focuses on Jack, who hasn’t found his place to help his father on the farm since the dust took over and there are no crops.

Jack is having a rough time overall—his older sister has dust pneumonia and he is picked on by the other boys in town. Jack wants to be helpful to his father, but seems to fumble what he does and then his father just wants him to go watch his little sister. One day while exploring his neighbor’s barn, Jack discovers an almost folklore-like creature, which he finds intimidating and scary—he starts to question his sanity, especially since others believe he has dust dementia.

Later in the novel, Jack decides to confront the mysterious figure in the barn after he witnesses a jackrabbit drive—the mass killing of jackrabbits because they were eating the only green left on the land--by the local men (not a graphic scene in itself, but the point is made—half the men are shaken after they realized what they just did). Jack soon realizes that this creature in the barn is the rain and when he confronts the Storm King he finds out that the rain is holding off till people are so desperate that they will worship him like a king.

In a folklore-like action, Jack steals the Storms King’s bag, which it turns out contains thunder and lightning and when ripped open sends the Storm King back to the sky and releases the rain.

The Storm in the Barn would work well paired with the nonfiction title, The Dust Bowl Through the Lens: How Photography Revealed and Helped Remedy a National Disaster by Martin W. Sandler. This book contains very powerful images from the Dust Bowl and the text is not overwhelming because the author wanted the photos to really tell the story. I also feel compelled to mention Karen Hesse’s Out Of the Dust as another great fictional pairing to help teach about the Dust Bowl.

Hesse, K. (1999). Out of the dust. New York, NY: Scholastic.

Phelan, M. (2009). The Storm in the barn. Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press.

Sandler, M. W. (2009). The Dust Bowl through the lens: how photography revealed and helped remedy a national disaster. New York, NY: Walker & Co.