The Disability Book Archive

[ID: A book cover. The background is a mix of brown and grey, and appears to be smokey. To the left, a painting of a young boy, stretching from the top of the cover to the bottom, wearing a long red tunic with a large black, buckled belt across the waist.
In the upper right corner, a large red box. A smaller, black box with a yellow trim is inside the red box. There is writing in the black box. It reads:
The title “Breath” in white capitals,
A quote “”[An] achingly poignant story about survival and the power of love.”- Voya” in smaller, yellow font,
The author’s name “Donna Jo Napoli” in slightly larger red font at the bottom of the box.
Behind the text, a large capitalised “B” in green. /end]

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Content Warning:

• Plague
• Violence
• Sexual Content
• Death

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Summary:

Salz is a boy afflicted with cystic fibrosis — though in the Middle Ages in Saxony no one can identify it as such. Instead he is an outcast, living with his unfeeling father and superstitious brothers in a hovel outside Hameln. His grandmother has kept Salz alive by having him avoid the mead and beer commonly drunk by all and by teaching him how to clear his lungs. When the townsfolk of Hameln are affected by a mold that grows on the hops — poisoning their mead and beer — Salz is one of the few who are unaffected. The mold’s effect is hallucinogenic, and soon Hameln is in the grips of a plague of madness, followed by a plague of rats. It is only Salz who can proclaim the truth — although it might cost him his life.

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Notes:

Some other classic fairy tale retellings that Napoli has written include:

• ‘Spinners’- Based on the tale of Rumpelstiltskin
• ‘Zel’- Based on the tale of Rapunzel
• ‘Beast’- Based on the tale of Beauty and the Beast

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Archivist Comments:

A review for this mentioned “wanton acts of fluting”. What does that even mean?!

It seems to be pretty short; it’s about 260 pages, and most people have commented on it being a fairly quick read.

What I’m getting from the reviews is that, though the Piper does appear, it’s more of a story about the events that happen in Hamelin prior to the Piper’s arrival, rather than the Pied Piper himself.

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