Reviews tagging 'War'

Echo by Pam Muñoz Ryan

8 reviews

laura_berger's review

dark emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Racism, Racial slurs, Grief, War, Xenophobia, and Antisemitism

Minor: Forced institutionalization, Injury/Injury detail, and Death

kibbles15's review against another edition

emotional hopeful informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism and Antisemitism

Moderate: War, Classism, and Racial slurs

Minor: Death, Forced institutionalization, and Death of parent

maxandrambo's review

emotional hopeful mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Antisemitism, Xenophobia, and Ableism

Minor: War and Child abuse

directorpurry's review

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs, Antisemitism, Racism, Xenophobia, and Ableism

Moderate: Death of parent and War

erinwolf1997's review

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring lighthearted medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Ableism, Antisemitism, Racism, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Hate crime, Abandonment, Genocide, and Racial slurs

Minor: Terminal illness, Forced institutionalization, Bullying, Child death, and Death of parent

bethann's review against another edition

inspiring mysterious sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Listening to the audiobook is a must for the different narration, instruments and music. 

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Content Warnings

Minor: Bullying, Genocide, Racism, and War

thedisabledreader's review against another edition

challenging emotional inspiring reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

Packed into a classic upper middle grade, three full stories covering issues and centering perspectives rarely discussed in a respectful light are fully developed, and each area covered is given its space and time to be properly addressed. The audience is trusted to handle the story with care due to the obvious effort that the author put into the development and research of it.

Her dedication to good representation was especially apparent throughout the first kid’s perspective. The history of the Holocaust often ignores the terrors that disabled people experienced as well as other minorities groups, so the portrayal of the complexities of the time period as well as the often ignored crimes is an important subject to bring to kids, especially in the target age range. 

The first story as well as the others do not have the opportunity to explore the emotions to the extent it should have considering the topics. It still developed the context of the stories, fictional and historical, to an appropriate and accurate extent, so it is a solid basis for middle grade readers to be introduced to or to further their knowledge on young kids in big situations.

Although I personally found the stories of varying intrigue, they are all written with solid foundations from a story building and character development perspective, so I appreciated reading them even if they were not necessarily my forte. It also helped that each subsection of the narratives had distinctive voices while still connecting all the characters together through themes and their values. 

The ending collision of the plots fit every character and story into a place that I was happy with leaving the characters as they were despite it not being necessarily realistic for their situations (especially considering the context of the Holocaust). It was a solid conclusion for the characters and their themes, and it was nice to read an ending to a heavy subject book thinking that their lives were still extending beyond what was shown.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Classism, Ableism, Racism, and Xenophobia

Minor: War, Forced institutionalization, Racial slurs, Death of parent, and Bullying

quillify_'s review

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective relaxing medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I read this book so long ago but I was so touched every time! The hints of magic, the stories of the three kids meeting in the last part, the fairytale-like charm to this book, the lovely artwork and cover. I loved, loved, loved Friedrich, Mike and Ivy. I loved their spirit and determination and that little hope they always kept in them. I loved the role music played in this book. It's such a good, simple way to teach kids how bigotry, discrimination and child labour works. How this book isn't more hyped, I'll never know

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Forced institutionalization, Ableism, War, and Hate crime

Moderate: Racism and Classism