SuitabookBreath
Donna Jo Napoli
- Reading
- Read alongside time to pause around Salz’s family life and the town’s changing behaviour. Afterwards, discuss which explanations characters trust, and whether the ending changes your view of courage.
- Themes
- Illness and misunderstanding: Salz has cystic fibrosis, though people around him cannot identify it, and he is treated as an outcast. His grandmother helps him survive. The book?s stance on this remains unclear.
- Truth during communal fear: A mould affecting hops poisons the town’s mead and beer, producing hallucinations and madness; Salz is among the few unaffected and can proclaim the truth. The premise sets practical knowledge against a community gripped by frightening explanations, but does not show how other characters respond or what the book ultimately endorses.
- Worth knowing
- Some readers may need preparation for a child’s chronic illness, social exclusion, an unfeeling parent, poisoning, hallucinations, madness, rats and the possibility that truth-telling could cost Salz his life.