A girl and her family live through a tuberculosis outbreak in this empathetic, hopeful middle-grade novel set in 1930s upstate New York.
Ten-year-old Hallelujah "Halle" Newton's life is upended when her mother, ill with tuberculosis, is sent to J.N. Adam Hospital to recover. Halle and her father test positive for the disease but are asymptomatic and non-contagious. However, Halle still experiences the stigma of illness at school: other students "held their breaths whenever they passed her." When Halle catches pneumonia, it increases the chances that her TB will turn active, meaning she must join her mother at J.N. Adam. The isolated hospital is a "beautiful, peaceful place" where patients--surrounded by "clean, crisp air and the wide-open sky"--undergo "sun curing or air curing." Halle, who is "pale," befriends other children at the hospital, including Flossie, who has "dark skin," and white Vivian. But Halle worries for her mother, whose health won't improve.
Light and Air is a quiet yet affecting story of a girl finding community in dark circumstances. Debut author Mindy Nichols Wendell thoughtfully explores the complexity of human responses to tragedy and grief. Halle's strained relationship with her intensely critical father is treated with complexity; he is portrayed not as a one-dimensional antagonist, but as a "sad and scared and angry" man who unjustly takes out his emotional turmoil on his daughter. Light and Air is both a richly detailed re-creation of a specific period in U.S. history and a timeless portrayal of resilience and compassion during an epidemic. --Alanna Felton, freelance reviewer