I finished listening to the audiobook of Echo by Pam Munoz Ryan this afternoon. This book was published in 2015 and a Winner of a 2016 Newbery Honor.
For those of you who snub your noses at books written for young adults thinking they’re not sophisticated enough for an adult audience to enjoy, I would strongly suggest you reconsider.
Echo starts as a fairy tale that leads you to the real struggles of life during WWII. This book deals with some heavy subject matter: Nazis in Germany, Japanese-Americans forced to live internment camps in the United States, the treatment of orphans in the early 1940’s, segregation of Mexican-Americans in California…
While this book’s target audience is children in grades 5-8, I would certainly recommend this book for adults as well. We need to remember our past and the mistakes we have made if we ever hope to see lasting changes for the better. Echo teaches valuable lessons without feeling preachy. Throughout the book, there’s hope. And the end of the book was quite satisfying.
I would recommend this book for students and older. A great story for classrooms! This book is a “clean” read.
Juli
JULI HOFFMAN 