In the end, the stories weave together musical and luminous. Beautifully, each story ends in a crescendo, leaving the reader breathless and worried about what will happen before starting the next story. She always offers hope though, allowing the harmonica and the power of music to pierce through and give light to the circumstances. Ryan explores some of the darkest times for families, put under excruciating pressure by the society they are living in. It marries the magic of the harmonica with more realistic historical fiction components very successfully. The stories speak to the heart, each child facing the difficulties with immense courage and love for others. Finally, there is Ivy in California, excluded from the normal public school because she is Mexican-American and hoping that this last move is one that gets her family a permanent home. There is Mike in Pennsylvania, placed in an orphanage when his grandmother can no longer care for him and his younger brother, desperate to find a place they can be together. There is Friedrich, a boy in Nazi Germany, who is struggling to hold his family together. Later, three young people encounter that harmonic and it changes their lives at critical points, bringing both peace and music into the darkness they are living in. When Otto meets the three girls in the forest, he sent on a quest that includes a harmonica that sings in different tones from normal ones. A stellar intertwined story that swirls around a magical harmonica, this book is one-of-a-kind in the best possible way.

Echo pam munoz ryan sparknotes