In this remarkable novel, Pam Muñoz Ryan (The Dreamer; Esperanza Rising) braids together three stories in which an unusual harmonica plays a part. She begins with a fairy tale: Otto loses track of time while reading a book during a hide-and-seek game. The book features three princesses left for dead by a king obsessed with begetting an heir, and the kind midwife who hides them. The princesses share with Otto the midwife's prophecy: "Your fate is not yet sealed./ Even in the darkest night, a star will shine,/ a bell will chime, a path will be revealed."
Readers will swiftly move through the novel's nearly 600 pages to find out how the prophecy comes to pass. The surprising twists and turns ratchet up the suspense, both within the individual stories and with the question of how the author will ultimately bring them together. The first of the three interlinked stories takes readers to 1933 Germany as Hitler begins his rise. Friedrich Schmidt, a 12-year-old with a wine-stain birthmark on his face, possesses a gift for conducting music that only he hears. But his sensitive ear also leads him to an enchanted harmonica that appears to play itself. Friedrich is flagged as an imperfection on Hitler's superior race--especially given his father's pro-Jewish sympathies, and he must flee.
The next stop is an orphanage in 1935 Philadelphia, where two brothers insist upon leaving together or not at all. Mrs. Sturbridge adopts them to fulfill the requirements of her father's will (and inherit the Dow fortune), at the urging of her lawyer and friend, Mr. Howard. When Mike Flannery learns that Mrs. Sturbridge is attempting to undo their adoption, he negotiates with her: if she'll keep his younger brother, Mike will depart with a traveling harmonica troupe.
The third story transports readers to 1942 California, where the government has rounded up Japanese-Americans and imprisoned them in camps. Ivy Maria Lopez moves from Fresno to Orange County when her father gets a job tending the land of an interned family, and readers learn along with Ivy about their white neighbors' racist treatment of Mexican-Americans.
Ryan, ever respectful of her readers' intelligence, gives them room to piece together the parallels and contrasts between the societies central to these stories. Music connects the three children and buoys them in communities torn by suspicion and cruelty. By framing the trio of interconnected stories within a fairy tale, Ryan tacitly lets readers believe they will survive--even though each closes with a cliffhanger--until the author completes her extraordinary epic tale. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness
Shelf Talker: In this epic novel, Pam Muñoz Ryan braids together three individuals' stories, in which music sustains them through war, conspiracies and atrocities.