My Life as an Asthmanaut: A Book about Asthma

A child's relatable reflections on what it's like to live with asthma

In My Life as an Asthmanaut, a young boy explains what it's like to live with asthma. When an asthma attack occurs, Jacob feels like an astronaut floating off to outer space-- with an empty air tank. Sometimes outer space is lonely--Jacob can't always join his family and friends when they exercise or play outside during allergy season. But he has tools to manage his asthma. He stays calm as he reaches for his inhaler to refill his air tank. He counts to 10 and comes back down to earth, where he can breathe easily, surrounded by people who love him. And when Jacob sees someone else who's low on air, he helps them find solid ground too.

• Offers an honest portrayal from an author who lives with asthma, describing what it's like to experience asthma attacks and how kids manage it
• Celebrates disability joy and offers an empowering self-representation for disabled kids
• Helps children develop empathy and understanding with first-person storytelling from a child's perspective
• Centers disabled voices by drawing on the author's experience with asthma

The Disability Books for Kids Series series explores visible and invisible disability in the first person, as seen through the eyes of children and written from lived experience. The series builds allyship, challenges ableism, and celebrates difference, empowering and educating all readers. Each book includes an author's note to the reader.

Jake Lockett writes books and stories for children, including My Life as an Asthmanaut. His short stories for young readers have appeared in Smarty Pants Kids, Skipping Stones, and Spider. Jake enjoys learning about space, exploring nature, building Lego sets, and watching movies on his home theater projector. He resides in the forested Allegheny Mountains, where the night skies are clear and blanketed with countless stars!

Adriana Predoi grew up in Romania, where she studied mural art in high school and went on to earn her BA in fine art. After graduating, she started working as a freelance illustrator, and she now focuses on children's illustration. Adriana works mainly digitally, and her style is whimsical, with a touch of magic. She draws inspiration from plants, nature, and best of all, books. In her free time, she loves reading fiction, writing stories for children, and dreaming of publishing her own picture book.