Thin Air (Red Fox Older Fiction) - Softcover

Grade 5-7-- Jacob Katz, a severe asthmatic, is eager to start sixth grade. His parents want to enroll him in a special class for children with chronic illnesses since he misses a lot of school. He, however, is determined to attend a regular class and pass himself off as completely healthy and normal, although he can't get through a single day without one of his frightening asthma attacks. He manages to enroll in the regular classroom, but, when he finds the teacher has discussed him with the other students, who treat him as if he were a fragile oddity, Jacob goes AWOL. Getz writes with wry insight in a novel that is lightly comic despite Jacob's serious problems. The young teen comes to deal more successfully with his health and self-concept by the end of the book, and his parents wake up to his deeper needs. Along the way are a lot of laughs as Jacob tries wildly and inventively to manipulate his restrictive environment. --Joyce Adams Burner, formerly at Spring Hill Middle School, KS
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