Breathing Room
4/5
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About this ebook
Evvy Hoffmeister is thirteen years old when her family brings her to Loon Lake Sanatorium to get cured of tuberculosis (TB). Evvy is frightened by her new surroundings; the rules to abide are harsh and the nurses equally rigid. But Evvy soon falls into step with the other girls in her ward. There's Sarah, quiet but thoughtful; Pearl, who adores Hollywood glamour; and Dina, whose harshness conceals a deep strength. Together, the girls brave the difficult daily routines. Set in 1940 at a time of political unrest throughout the U.S. and Europe, this thought-provoking novel sheds light on a much-feared worldwide illness. Hundreds of thousands of people died each year of TB, and many ill children were sent away to sanatoriums to hopefully recover.
This is a masterful novel—both eloquent and moving—that gives voice to those who fought hard to overcome the illness.
Marsha Hayles
Marsha Hayles is the author of several books for young children. Breathing Room is her first novel. She lives in Pittsford, New York, with her family.
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Reviews for Breathing Room
44 ratings8 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I really liked the characters and getting to know the dreaded disease tuberculosis. Evvy gives us insight into how it feels to miss family and try to relate to new friends who are just as afraid of dying as she is. Great characterization!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A quick read that follows Evvy's stay at Loon Lake sanatorium in Minnesota for people suffering from tuberculosis. It explores her treatment, friendships, and the attempts to survive the disease. I didn't know much about TB before reading this book, so I learned a lot as I read Evvy's story unfold.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Having TB in the 1940's means you must be sent away so as not to infect the rest of your family. How do you cope away from everyone you know and how do you deal with a life threating disease.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5When 13-year-old Evvy is sent to the Loon Lake Sanatorium, in hopes that she will recover from her tuberculosis there, she does not know what to expect. Many of the staff members treat the patients brusquely, or even harshly, and there are many rules that limit patients' activity, as rest is the top priority for sanatorium residents. As she acclimates to life at the sanatorium, Evvy starts to make friends with the other girls in her room. All of them long to be cured and return home -- but for tuberculosis sufferers in 1940, a return to health is certainly not guaranteed.This is historical fiction of the classroom sort -- interesting and enjoyable enough, but probably not something that kids will eagerly pick up on their own. Hayles does a good job of integrating her research into the story without it seeming too overt, and an author's note at the end will answer further questions about tuberculosis sanatoria for the curious reader. Books featuring dying children walk a fine line between being emotionally evocative and emotionally manipulative. While I wouldn't classify this book as manipulative, I think the writing is a little constrained and sanitized, limiting the emotional impact of the story. It's a fairly good book, but not a great one.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Historical novels are one of my favorites and I tried to like this one and get into it but just gave up.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A moving, beautifully written story.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5When she is 13, Evvy is taken to the county sanitorium in the hopes that the rest and fresh air perscribed there will cure her tuberculosis, and keep her family safe. While at Loon Lake, Evvy shares her room and her disease with other girls around her age. Together they fight to stay alive and fight against the terrible racism at the time against both Jews and Germans. This book was a quick read with a good story line. I would recommend this book for a reader who needed to read, but was not very excited about, a historical fiction. Most of the story is truly centered around the girls and their progress, with appropriate and quick information about the time period. I found the history of the disease as well as the pictures with each chapter really interesting.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Historical novel about the sanatoriums that patients lived in while trying to recover from tuberculosis in the 1940s. The reader first meets Evvy as her father is driving her to the Loon Lake sanatorium, where he'll leave her until she is well enough to return home, if she is so lucky. She turns out to be one of the lucky ones, though several of the characters that we meet are not. In order to be appropriate for a younger reader (upper elementary) the book is sanitized a little too much for me -- the reader barely can tell that Evvy is sick, and while she is sad she does not come across as terrified as I imagine any 13-year-old would be if she was not allowed to see her parents, she had a deadly disease, and the medical personnel was as uncaring as they were portrayed. Nevertheless, it is a fascinating lesson about how tuberculosis was treated at its peak. Very sad.
Book preview
Breathing Room - Marsha Hayles
To Hannah, Lily, and Nate,
Who helped me make this journey—
Step by step,
Breath by breath
Table of Contents
Title Page
CHAPTER 1 - Leaving
CHAPTER 2 - Loonless Lake
CHAPTER 3 - Turning Into a Patient
CHAPTER 4 - A Gray Picture
CHAPTER 5 - The Others
CHAPTER 6 - The Land of Rules
CHAPTER 7 - Smelly Stuff
CHAPTER 8 - Going Home
CHAPTER 9 - A Different Tune
CHAPTER 10 - The Routine
CHAPTER 11 - The New Bug
CHAPTER 12 - Blue Nothing
CHAPTER 13 - Blue Something
CHAPTER 14 - The Giant
CHAPTER 15 - Moving Pictures
CHAPTER 16 - Out of Breath
CHAPTER 17 - Flying Away
CHAPTER 18 - A Boost
CHAPTER 19 - Numbers
CHAPTER 20 - Discharged
CHAPTER 21 - Looking Back
CHAPTER 22 - A Brook
CHAPTER 23 - Cold News
CHAPTER 24 - Wind and Weather
CHAPTER 25 - A Ruby
CHAPTER 26 - A Different Current
CHAPTER 27 - Gifts
CHAPTER 28 - More Gifts
CHAPTER 29 - The Plan
CHAPTER 30 - The Lie
CHAPTER 31 - Making Sense
CHAPTER 32 - A Warning
CHAPTER 33 - Finding Her
CHAPTER 34 - Losing Her
CHAPTER 35 - Good-bye
CHAPTER 36 - Letting Go
CHAPTER 37 - Bed Post
CHAPTER 38 - Midnight Journey
CHAPTER 39 - A Different Path
CHAPTER 40 - Last Night
CHAPTER 41 - Going Home
CHAPTER 42 - Blank Pages
AUTHOR’S NOTE
NOTES ON THE IMAGES
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Copyright Page
CHAPTER 1
Leaving
(May 1940)
FATHER JERKED THE CAR to the side of the road and stopped. Are you okay, Evvy?
he asked, turning in his seat to look at me.
I pitched my head back, gasping for air between coughs. Breathe! a voice inside me screamed. I dropped the Loon Lake brochure. A blast of heavy, moist air shot up from my lungs and exploded into the handkerchief I’d grabbed and pressed against my lips.
But I could breathe again. I’m okay, Father,
I said, though my voice crackled as if it had just been hatched and never used before. Really I am.
He sank back down into his seat and grabbed the steering wheel. Ya got Francy?
he asked, glancing at me in the rearview mirror, worry in his eyes.
I lifted my stuffed bear to show him. Thirteen was too old to be holding on to a teddy bear—at least, that’s what Mother thought. I was glad Father didn’t feel that way.
Then get some rest, Puddlejump,
Father said, using the nickname he’d given me when I was a little girl. And don’t worry, we’ll be there soon.
As if that could make me feel any better.
He put the car in gear, and the two of us were off again, driving to Loon Lake—or Loony Lake, as my twin brother, Abe, had already renamed it—a sanatorium where sick and contagious people like me went to get better. At least, that was the hope.
When I knew Father wasn’t looking, I opened my hand. The damp handkerchief unfolded just enough so I could see the streaks of blood across it. It wasn’t the first time I’d coughed up blood. But I’d never told anybody, not even Abe. I was too afraid. Did this blood mean I was going to die?
e9781466816039_i0002.jpgCHAPTER 2
Loonless Lake
FATHER TOOK THE KEY out of the ignition and reached for his hat. Well, here we are, Evvy.
The sanatorium loomed outside the car window, a giant version of the photo my finger had now smudged on the brochure.
See any loons?
I asked, as if one might fly by to welcome us.
No, not yet,
he said, walking around to my door.
How about a lake?
Nope, but it’s Minnesota, Evvy. One can’t be too far away.
I grabbed my stuffed bear and held Father’s hand just long enough to get up on my feet. I didn’t want Father going home with my germs.
Father hesitated at the bottom of the stairs leading to the main building. Maybe I should carry you, Evvy.
I’m okay, Father, really.
I then climbed the first three steps just to show him.
Hey, wait for me, Puddlejump,
he said, as if I’d set off on a race. He paused every few steps to point at flowers in the gardens so I could lean on the railing and rest.
At last, Father opened the building’s tall door. What is that hospital smell? Sick people? Lysol? Bleach? I felt like my face was being slapped by a damp washcloth.
A young man in a white uniform plunked me into a wheelchair and delivered us to a tall marble counter. We waited a moment, Father’s hand on my shoulder, my stuffed bear tucked under my arm. A woman started speaking. I couldn’t see the lady’s face, just her starched white cap bobbing up and down as she quizzed Father about my health and family history.
The nurse didn’t ask me any questions, and when Father asked her some, I didn’t like any of her answers, especially, Visitors are not allowed at Loon Lake until authorized by Dr. Tollerud. Your daughter needs to rest, Mr. Hoffmeister. We will decide what is best for her.
The nurse then came out from behind the tall desk. She stood stiff and straight in her white cap and uniform. I am Nurse Marshall,
she said, speaking only to Father. Dr. Keith and I will be in charge of your daughter’s immediate medical care.
At the sight of me, she lifted and tied a white mask to cover her mouth and nose, looking like a robber, not a nurse.
Please don’t let her steal me from you, Father!
He tugged at the hat in his hands but couldn’t seem to make himself turn toward the door. Could I have a moment alone with my daughter?
Nurse Marshall stood up even straighter, answering his request with an icy stare.
Well, then, thank you, Nurse Marshall.
Father nodded politely. I guess it’s time for us to say good-bye, Evvy.
Nurse Marshall took control of my wheelchair and started pushing me away.
Your mother will miss you,
he called. We all will!
Father was always trying to let me know my mother loved me. I didn’t need to be reminded how Abe and Father felt.
I wanted to cry, but not with the nurse so close behind me. Droplets of moisture seemed to weep through my skin—on my hands and chest, even behind my knees—as if everything but my eyes could show how I was really feeling.
Then Nurse Marshall turned a corner and Father was gone. I never did get the chance to tell him good-bye.
e9781466816039_i0003.jpgCHAPTER 3
Turning Into a Patient
NURSE MARSHALL pushed me down a series of corridors, from one building to the next. My legs, which had felt fine in the car, now felt heavy, as if I had thick cough syrup instead of blood running through my veins. I was wheeled past patients resting outside in the fresh air. A few gave me half-hearted smiles as I rolled by, but somehow that just made me feel worse.
One man waved. He was leaning out a window, his lopsided chest crisscrossed with what looked like one of Grandma Hoffmeister’s undergarments. A brassiere? No, a bandage! A fancy one made of straps that circled under each arm, over his shoulders, and even around his stomach—more like a gun holster than a brassiere. But why did he need it? Would he fall to pieces without it? Would I need one too?
Back inside, hacking, spitting, sputtering coughs rocketed at me from all directions. Doctors and nurses rushed past. With masks over their mouths and noses, they didn’t have to try to smile at me.
Then Nurse Marshall rolled me into a large tiled room to be bathed—boiled, actually. I felt like one of Grandma Hoffmeister’s cabbages bouncing around in a pot of steaming water. My hair got scrubbed with a smelly green shampoo, my skin was scraped with a bar of soap as big as a brick, and then all of me got dried off with a towel that seemed determined to rub away half my skin and leave the other half red and raw.
I was put in Loon Lake pajamas—white baggy pants and a loose button-up top. Raising your arms to dress might strain your lungs,
Nurse Marshall said in a wooden voice, like someone reading from a manual.
Wait until I tell Abe. Even pajamas can kill you at Loon Lake!
As she cinched me into a white bathrobe, put slippers on my feet, and seated me back in the wheelchair, she continued telling me in the same practiced tone how talking could also damage the lungs and was therefore not allowed at Loon Lake.
My other outfit—the one Mother had carefully chosen and ironed so I would make a good first impression—had been flopped over a metal chair and looked as limp as I felt. Nurse Marshall balled up the clothing, then grabbed Francy by one ear and dropped everything into a metal bin, letting the lid snap shut. Full of germs,
she said.
I couldn’t leave Francy behind, not in that cold bin all alone. Please!
I begged.
I am not here to coddle you,
Nurse Marshall said, pushing my wheelchair out the door. Kindness will not cure you or anyone at Loon Lake.
Before we’d left Northfield, Father had made me promise not to cry, saying how we’d both have to buck up and be good soldiers. I wondered if he was being a good soldier now too.
One thing I did know for certain: Mother didn’t cry this morning. She gave a faint wave, then pulled Abe close as they watched the car back out of the driveway. Was she worried more about me leaving or about Abe getting sick next?
Maybe if Abe had been with me now, I’d have been brave and held back my tears. But I was at Loon Lake all by myself—just Evvy, not half of the Abe and Evvy duo. I felt more lopsided than the man in the window. So when the nurse parked me in a corner and said, Wait here
—as if I had any choice—I cried, burying my face in the sleeve of a strange, stiff bathrobe instead of the soft, familiar fur of my stuffed bear.
CHAPTER 4
A Gray Picture
e9781466816039_i0004.jpgNURSE MARSHALL might have noticed my tears had she taken a moment to look at me. Instead, as I wiped my eyes, she backed the