Bravo! Bravo!

Your Fate Is Not Yet Sealed.
Even In The Darkest Night, A Star Will Shine,
A Bell Will Chime, A Path Will Be Revealed.

Echo by Pam Muñoz Ryan is a wonderful story within a story within a story. (phew)

The book begins with Otto and Mathilde playing hide-and-seek. It moves to three sisters, a kindhearted midwife, and a selfish witch. And then there is the harmonica and twelve-year-old Friedrich, eleven-year-old Mike Flannery, and fifth grader Ivy Lopez. The harmonica travels across years and continents and wars.

Echo is almost 600 pages of historical fiction, fantasy, fairy tale, magic! Even with its hefty size, Echo is a book you will want to read more than once.

The story contains a magical element around the power of music, and an audio version of the book is highly recommended. Hearing the musical pieces that Ms. Ryan uses in the book adds an extra emotional element to the narrative - as the characters get carried away by the music, so too can the listener.

Brahms' Lullaby, America The Beautiful, Auld Lang Syne, Some Enchanted Evening

Tonight, there was a brilliance in the hall, a communion of spirits, as if ... everyone were one, breathing in and out to the same tempo, feeling one another's strength and vision, filling with beauty and light, glowing beneath the same stars...... and connected by the same silken thread.

"Let me say it!" said Frankie. "We will stand up and clap and yell, 'Bravo! Bravo!'"

Get this book; read it once or twice, then listen to the audiobook. And every night as you lay in your bed, wondering what joy tomorrow might bring, yet knowing how precarious life can be, repeat the words:

Your Fate Is Not Yet Sealed.
Even In The Darkest Night, A Star Will Shine,
A Bell Will Chime, A Path Will Be Revealed.