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BREATHING ROOM

Name: BREATHING ROOM
Author: Marsha Hayles
ISBN: 978-0-8050-8961-5

by Marsha Hayles ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 5, 2012

A quiet, sober story of a genuine heroine who survives a devastating disease with grace.

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Confined to a tuberculosis sanatorium in rural Minnesota, 13 year-old Evelyn Hoffmeister develops inner strength as she copes with loneliness, loss and the insidious disease that threatens her life.

In May 1940, Evvy’s father leaves her at Loon Lake Sanatorium, where she’s assigned to a ward with other teenage tuberculosis patients. Isolated from her family, Evvy quickly learns to follow Loon Lake’s strict regimen of bed rest, diet and treatment, with no talking or visitors. Frightened and overwhelmed, Evvy gradually adapts to the sterile routine and discovers her fellow patients: talkative, fashionable Pearl; kindhearted Beverly; gruff Dena; and shy Sarah, a Jewish girl who becomes her best friend. As time slowly passes, Evvy realizes some patients improve and leave, while others die, sometimes unexpectedly. Speaking first as an observer and later as an engaged participant and survivor, Evvy tells the story of her year at Loon Lake. By describing her feelings, fears and tentative hope, she offers an inside peek at the lives of tuberculosis patients in the pre–World War II era, when there was no real cure for the disease. Period photographs of equipment, posters, medical treatments and hospital facilities relating to tuberculosis add verisimilitude.

A quiet, sober story of a genuine heroine who survives a devastating disease with grace. (photographs; author’s note; notes on photographs) (Historical fiction. 10-14)

Pub Date: June 5, 2012

ISBN: 978-0-8050-8961-5

Page Count: 256

Publisher: Christy Ottaviano/Henry Holt

Review Posted Online: May 29, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2012

Categories:

CHILDREN'S HISTORICAL FICTION | CHILDREN'S HEALTH & DAILY LIVING

- BOOK REVIEW
BUNION BURT
by Marsha Hayles & illustrated by Jack E. Davis

- BOOK REVIEW
PAJAMAS ANYTIME
by Marsha Hayles & illustrated by Hiroe Nakata

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FEATHERED CROWN
by Marsha Hayles & illustrated by Bernadette Pons

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THE SEVENTH MOST IMPORTANT THING

by Shelley Pearsall ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 8, 2015

Luminescent, just like the artwork it celebrates. (Historical fiction. 10-14)

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Traumatized by his father’s recent death, a boy throws a brick at an old man who collects junk in his neighborhood and winds up on probation working for him.

Pearsall bases the book on a famed real work of folk art, the Throne of the Third Heaven, by James Hampton, a janitor who built his work in a garage in Washington, D.C., from bits of light bulbs, foil, mirrors, wood, bottles, coffee cans, and cardboard—the titular seven most important things. In late 1963, 13-year-old Arthur finds himself looking for junk for Mr. Hampton, who needs help with his artistic masterpiece, begun during World War II. The book focuses on redemption rather than art, as Hampton forgives the fictional Arthur for his crime, getting the boy to participate in his work at first reluctantly, later with love. Arthur struggles with his anger over his father’s death and his mother’s new boyfriend. Readers watch as Arthur transfers much of his love for his father to Mr. Hampton and accepts responsibility for saving the art when it becomes endangered. Written in a homespun style that reflects the simple components of the artwork, the story guides readers along with Arthur to an understanding of the most important things in life.

Luminescent, just like the artwork it celebrates. (Historical fiction. 10-14)