It is a magical thing to step into a world created by Wolk (Beyond the Bright Sea, 2017), even without any fantastic enchantment. In this instance, the story of Ellie and her family is a diamond glinting in the rough of the Great Depression, when poverty drives them from town to a more wild existence on a mountainside. Though her mother and older sister yearn to return to civilized life, Ellie thrives in this new environment. But they all must muster different brands of courage when an accident leaves Ellie's father in a coma. Though only 12, Ellie steps up to do many of the tasks, such as hunting and fishing, that had been her father's, all the while remaining determined to jar him back awake by any means possible. Her spirit and empathy eventually lead her far up the mountain to the cabin of Cate, aka the local hag, where Ellie discovers that Cate is herself ill with a festering wound. Compelled to help Cate as much as her father, Ellie learns and accomplishes more than she knew was possible. Complex and fiercely loving, Ellie is a girl any reader would be proud to have as a friend. Woven with music, puppies, and healing, Wolk's beautiful storytelling turns this historical tale of family and survival into a captivating saga.

A girl realizes her standout gifts as a healer in this exquisitely layered historical novel set in Depression-era Maine. After the financial crash forces a tight-knit family of five to move from town to build a cabin on Echo Mountain, a tree-felling accident puts 12-year-old narrator Ellie's father into a coma. The family's struggle to survive intensifies, made worse by fears about whether their beloved father--a tailor turned woodsman who, like Ellie, loves the wild--will ever awaken. Complex family dynamics loom large amid day-to-day matters: Ellie's mother and sister long for their former life and blame Ellie for her father's state; Ellie, who discovers a gift for healing, further upsets them by trying to startle her father awake. When a dog leads Ellie to "the hag," a woman who knows about cures and is herself suffering, the girl lends a hand, resulting in further tensions, this time within the interconnected mountain community. Via strongly sketched cabin-life cadences and memorable, empathic characterizations--including, perhaps most vividly, of the wilderness itself--Newbery Honoree Wolk (Wolf Hollow) builds a powerful, well-paced portrait of interconnectedness, work and learning, and strength in a time of crisis. Ages 10--up. (Apr.)

Since the Great Depression forced twelve-year-old Ellies family to move from town up to Echo Mountain, she hasnt known how to interact with her mother and older sister; they miss their former life and blame her for the tree-felling accident that has left her father in a coma. Ellie doesnt know how to wake him up, though she keenly desires it, but theres a lot she does know: how to hunt and trap and fish and harvest as if she were born to it. Remembering her fathers advice -- the things we need to learn to do, we learn to do by doing -- she takes it upon herself to find the answers to her problems, including persistent attempts to rouse her father using unconventional methods (dousing him with cold water, stinging him with bees). Meeting the injured Miss Cate, an elderly mountain woman, and Larkin, a solitary boy with a talent for wood carving, eventually helps Ellie figure out how to heal her broken family. Wolks latest novel (Wolf Hollow, rev. 7/16; Beyond the Bright Sea, rev. 7/17) immerses readers in its 1934 Maine woods setting, folding myriad details about living off the land into Ellies captivating and complex first-person narration. Free-spirited Ellies affinity for her natural surroundings and her empathic connection with animals show an appreciation for the interconnectedness of life, as do several of the (well-earned) plot revelations. Wolks poetic prose and enticing foreshadowing warrant savoring as they carry the reader through the narrative, which gracefully unfolds over brief, steadily paced chapters. Exemplary historical fiction. Cynthia K. Ritter July/August 2020 p.145(c) Copyright 2020. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Gr 4 Up--The Great Depression took many things from Ellie's family--her parent's jobs, their house, and their comfortable lives. They moved to property on Echo Mountain to start over and rebuild. And what the Great Depression didn't take, the mountain did. Ellie lost the family that she once knew. Her mother and her sister, Esther, weren't meant for life on the mountains, they said. And her father has spent the last several months in a coma due to an accident from a felled tree. Ellie carries the emotional burden of taking the blame for it and the physical burden of handling the manual tasks in his absence. But while the mountain takes, it also gives--carved trinkets, plants for healing, and friendships found in unexpected places. Wolk crafts an uplifting story of resilience and determination during a time when morale is incredibly low. She illustrates how people are multifaceted, and not always what they seem. In this novel, family can take many forms--the one you're born into, and the one that finds you when and where you least expect it. The narrative does contain subtle but direct details involving maggots, blood, and wounds that will intrigue the most reluctant of readers but may be too much for those with a weak stomach. VERDICT A heartfelt read and recommended first purchase for all collections. You can tell readers that the dog doesn't die at the end.--Alicia Kalan, The Northwest School, Seattle

After losing almost everything in the Great Depression, Ellie's family moves to the Maine woods on Echo Mountain to start a farmthen tragedy strikes.Not long after getting them established in their new life, Ellie's father is struck on the head by a falling tree and lapses into a monthslong coma, his recovery unlikely. Never feeling threatened by the wilderness the way her mother and older sister, Esther, do, Ellie takes over many of her beloved father's chores, finding comfort and confidence in the forest. She's fully mindful of her place in the natural world and her impact on the plants and animals she shares it with. After she becomes determined to use the resources of the woods, however novel and imaginative the application, to save her father, conflict with her mother and Esther increases sharply. Led by a dog, Ellie discovers elderly Catecalled "hag" and shunned as a witchbadly injured, living alone in a cabin on the mountaintop. Cate fully understands the 12-year-old's slightly supernatural sense. Cate's grandson, Larkin, Ellie's age, flits in and out of the tale before finally claiming his place in this magnificently related story of the wide arc of responsibility, acceptance, and, ultimately, connectedness. Carefully paced and told in lyrical prose, charactersall default whiteare given plenty of time and room to develop against a well-realized, timeless setting.A luscious, shivery delight. (Historical fiction. 10-14) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.