Echo Mountain

When I was young, I read Where the Red Fern Grows, by Wilson Rawls. Published in 1961, it captured the love of nature and adventure that I experienced growing up. But as usual, the protagonist was a boy.

Echo Mountain has similar touchstones, but it is the book I wish I could have read when I was 13. The novel ticks all the survival story boxes for me: it features a feisty, independent girl hero, practical tips about wilderness survival, and realistic problems she must solve, sometimes defying cautious adult advice.

Lauren Wolk takes on heavy issues—loss of home, loss of parents, loss of friends, bullying with real consequences, and more—and explores them unflinchingly through a child’s perspective.

She also does this with the sentences of a poet. Her books are addictive yet so well-written that they require savoring.

Once we finish reading one aloud, we are already hungry for the next. Of all her books, Echo Mountain holds the highest spot in our hearts because it features a perfect younger brother and a perfect dog. 

This middle grade novel made about half of my graduate creative writing students cry! It tells a story of a family who loses their house during the Great Depression and must make their way living wild on a mountain in New England.

The narrator Ellie is wise, gritty, curious, and a natural healer who loves animals and feels what they feel: in her own words, she is an “echo girl.” Wolk has a poet’s heart and a perfect way of remembering what it’s like to be twelve.