I love a coming of age story, and this is a good one. The main character is a girl of twelve, and this novel would be appropriate for young readers as well as adults. Echo Mountain was the NPR book of the year in 2020, which is how I got it onto my reading list. I listened to it and both the author and narrator did a great job depicting both the time period and an unusual girl of exceptional spunk.

This is historical fiction, set just after the stock market crash in 1929, when the main character’s family lost everything and retreated to the woods on Echo Mountain to carve out a life. Some of the family has adapted to this better than others, and then calamity struck, when the father was hurt by a fallen tree. Now Ellie, who was the most comfortable in the woods, must step in, to support the family. She learns all sorts of things, and meets a range of challenges with creativity, resilience, persistence, generosity, selflessness, and determination. In the process she makes a couple friends and learns a bit about what it takes to heal.

I liked this soothingly simple story and its characters who bravely overcome adversity. You or your young people might like it too. I give it 5 stars.