Nature, survival & relationships full of healing: Echo Mountain

 

Echo Mountain by Lauren Wolk is a historical fiction, middle-grade chapter book that can be enjoyed by anyone, especially adults.  Wolk is a master storyteller who takes the reader back in time to the 1920s in Maine where Ellie's family is forced from their home in town to move up into Echo Mountain and make a new way of life for themselves. They must survive on nature and learn how to barter for goods and services. Ellie copes with it by saying, "for every difficulty there had been some kind of good work we could do. So we'd done it." For three years they are able to do it but then when Ellie is 12, her father falls into a coma and she takes it upon herself to find a way to bring him back.  

Her mother, a former music teacher, is struggling to keep the family and their way of life together until her husband can rejoin them.  She doesn't trust Ellie's wild-spirited ideas for waking up her father and would rather just wait and see instead of trying any of Ellie's harebrained schemes.  Ellie finds solace and oneness in the mountain and dares to trudge up to the forbidden parts in order to get help from the elusive "hag" who her father had warned to keep away from when he was conscious. She also hopes to find the person responsible for leaving her tiny wooden carvings.  Could it be the hag who noticed Ellie and her need for connection? Wolk writes, "loneliness shared is loneliness halved."  Perhaps the hag can help Ellie and her family in more ways than one?

Ellie's journey of self-discovery and finding how to deal with her mother's struggles as well lead her to a better place.  Even if there are unexpected twists, dangers lurking in the woods, and the possibility of hurting her father more than healing him, she knows that she must listen to the heat in her chest to continue despite the risks.  Wolk concludes with the idea that "life is a matter of moments, strung together like rain.  To try to touch just one drop at a time, to try to count them or order them or reckon their worth --each by each--was impossible."  The reader can consider how this idea connects to the events from the start of the story all of the way to the end.  How did Ellie's life become like rain drops? How did her family and others on the mountain continue surviving even with major setbacks?

This story is excellent for discussion for book clubs in the middle grades all the way up to adult readers.  The fact that Ellie is without any medical supplies as she is trying to heal open wounds does lead to quite gory depictions, but they are necessary as a part of the story.  Without them, the reader could not truly empathize with Ellie's situation and what she was left to do.   I would rate this book as a must-read, along with Wolk's other books, Wolf Hollow and Beyond the Bright Sea.