The Deepest Breath

By Meg Grehan

An accessible and beautifully written middle grade novel-in-verse by award-winning Irish author Meg Grehan about Stevie, a young girl reckoning with anxiety about the many things she has yet to understand—including her feelings about her friend Chloe. Perfect for fans of Ivy Aberdeen's Letter to the World, Star Crossed, and George.

Eleven-year-old Stevie is an avid reader and she knows a lot of things about a lot of things. But these are the things she'd like to know the most:

1. The ocean and all the things that live there and why it's so scary
2. The stars and all the constellations
3. How phones work
4. What happened to Princess Anastasia
5. Knots

Knowing things makes Stevie feel safe, powerful, and in control should anything bad happen. And with the help of her mom, she is finding the tools to manage her anxiety.

But there’s one something Stevie doesn’t know, one thing she wants to understand above everything else, and one thing she isn't quite ready to share with her mom: the fizzy feeling she gets in her chest when she looks at her friend, Chloe. What does it mean and why isn't she ready to talk about it?

In this poetic exploration of identity and anxiety, Stevie must confront her fears to find inner freedom all while discovering it is our connections with others that make us stronger.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Feb 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9780358355458

Meg Grehan

Meg Grehan is a writer originally from County Louth, but is now hiding away in Donegal in the northwest corner of Ireland, with a very ginger girlfriend, an even more ginger dog, and an undisclosed number of cats (none of whom is ginger). In 2018, she won the Eillís Dillon award from Children’s Books Ireland. She is currently studying film and likes cake and rain; dislikes going outside.  Website: megcathwrites.wordpress.com Twitter & Instagram: @megcathwrites  

Book preview

First US edition

Copyright © 2019 by Meg Grehan

All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to [e-mail] or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

hmhbooks.com

First published in Ireland as The Deepest Breath, by Little Island Books, 2019

Cover illustration © 2021 by Ahra Kwon

Cover design and hand lettering by Andrea Miller

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Grehan, Meg, author.

Title: Deepest breath / Meg Grehan.

Description: Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2021. | Originally published in Dublin, Ireland, by Little Island Books in 2019. | Audience: Ages 10 to 12. | Audience: Grades 4–6. | Summary: Struggling with her feelings for a female classmate, an eleven-year-old Irish girl tries to confide in her mother, the person she trusts most in the world.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019037075 (print) | LCCN 2019037076 (ebook) | ISBN 9780358354758 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780358355458 (ebook)

Subjects: CYAC: Novels in verse. | Identity—Fiction. | Self-acceptance—Fiction. | Coming out (Sexual orientation)—Fiction. | Lesbians—Fiction. | Mothers and daughters—Fiction.

Classification: LCC PZ7.5.G7 De 2021 (print) | LCC PZ7.5.G7 (ebook) | DDC [Fic]—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019037075

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019037076

v1.0121

For Dylan

For always making everything

A little less scary

one

I know a lot of things

About a lot of things

But the thing I know the most about

Is me

Stevie

I know that I am eleven years and two months old

And that my hair is brown

And my eyes are green

And I’m allergic to peanuts

I know I have a mum

Whose room is right next to mine

And that sometimes we tap and scratch on the wall at night

Morse code is good for scaring nightmares away

I know that

I know I have a dad

And I know that he lives far away

And I know that’s not my fault

And I know that that’s

OK

I know that I have a funny name

Because the doctors said my mum was going to have a baby boy

But then I popped out

A slimy wriggly baby girl

And she liked the name too much by then

So Stevie it was

And Stevie I am

I know I like the color purple

And things that sparkle

And science and books

And cats and stars and space

I know that I broke my pinkie finger once

And that now

It sticks out funny

I know I’m afraid of zombies and clowns

And not much else

I know I can be brave

But that sometimes it’s hard

I know a lot

About me

There’s only one thing

In the whole of me

That I don’t know

It’s something funny

It’s in my chest

And sometimes my tummy

And always my head

It’s a fizzy feeling

Warm and squishy

And it makes me blush

And it only happens

When I look at my friend

Chloe

And I don’t know what it is

Exactly

two

At school I share a desk

With Chloe

And Andrew

And Robert

Us girls on one side

And the boys on the other

Robert likes football

And is really good at math

Way better than me

And he’s nice

Though we don’t talk much

Mostly he talks to Andrew

Andrew has been my friend

Ever since we were babies

And even though we didn’t choose to be friends

I’m glad we are

Though we don’t talk at school too much

Because I read a lot

And he likes to listen to Robert

Talk about football

Way more than I thought anyone could

Chloe paints her nails

A new color

Every week

On Mondays they are sleek and shiny and new

And on Fridays

They are all

Chipped

And bitten

And you have to look

Really close

To see what color they were

But I always know what color they were

I know last week they were pink

And the week before they were yellow

And the week before that they were orange

With tiny black bats on her pinkie nails

For Halloween

Chloe bites her nails

And the last of her nail polish

(Green this week, with sparkles)

Falls like radioactive snow onto our desk

I wipe some off my book

And try to concentrate

We’re learning about

Whales

Whales scare me a little

Because they’re so big

That I must be

So small

But still

I try to concentrate

And I write down

The most interesting things

In my notebook

My notebook

Is gigantic

It has five hundred pages

And

Reviews for The Deepest Breath

[jennybeast · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I loved that this book is such a gentle questioning -- Stevie is at the beginning of her journey into figuring out that she has a crush on a girl, and it's totally age appropriate for kids. It's short, it's in verse -- both really accessible features. It also deals with anxiety and abandonment (her father has left and her mother is her sole parent) -- these are huge issues for LGBTQ kids, and Stevie has real concerns when her mother does not seem receptive to the idea of liking girls. It does a great job of calling out the kinds of messages that kids get every day from their parents -- sometimes inadvertently, sometimes not -- assumptions about marrying boys, assumptions about body image -- there's a lot that kids take in.

[bookwren · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Beautifully told, warm, and inspiring. The Librarian who helps Stevie epitomizes so many wonderful librarians. I love the short verse format that emphasizes words and thoughts at line breaks. Give this one to kids who are anxious and doubt themselves. I can't wait to read more of Meg Grehan's writing.

[krau0098 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Series Info/Source: I got an ARC for this through Amazon Vine to review. This is a stand alone book told in prose format.Story (4/5): Stevie is 11 years old and loves to read, she also has anxiety issues and can’t understand why she likes hanging out with her friend Chloe so much. We get to glimpse into Stevie’s life via the prose she writes as she works through these issues.Characters (4/5): I felt like Stevie came across as being a few years older than 11 (I have a 13 year old and Stevie feels like she’s more in the 13-15 year old range to me). However, I enjoyed getting to know Stevie through her prose. She suffers from anxiety issues and is trying to figure out why she likes girls instead of boys. I also really loved how supportive her mother was. The characters are generally well done.Setting (4/5): The setting was fine but not the point of the book, most of the setting is at Stevie’s house or her school.Writing Style (4/5): This whole book is written in freeform prose. It does a great job getting the story across and provides some excellent imagery around Stevie’s feelings and struggles. This was a very quick read for me.My Summary (4/5): Overall I enjoyed this and am glad I read it. The prose format works well for Stevie’s story. This does a good job at looking at a character that suffers from anxiety and is trying to figure out her own sexuality in an environment that is supportive. It’s just a little slip of a book and took 20 minutes or so to read. I thought the impact of the book was well worth the time I put in to read it. However, I probably wouldn’t purchase it unless I knew someone with a special interest in the addressed issues because it was so short and doesn’t really cover any new ground. I would recommend borrowing it from the library if you are interested in the topics of coming-of-age identity and/or anxiety.