MARCH 2013 - AudioFile
What was it like to transform from a healthy 12-year-old to a young girl paralyzed by polio in just the space of a few days? In her fictionalized memoir, children’s author Peg Kehret traces this journey and the following months of rehabilitation in 1949. Kehret’s account is riveting in large part due to narrator Susan Boyce. Neither sentimental nor saccharine, Boyce moves steadily through the details of the trying days. As Peg, she uses pause and emphasis to illuminate the moments of deep fear, of understanding and acceptance, and of increasing determination. Boyce also voices the worry of Peg’s parents, stress on the part of nurses (for example, when her parents insist on a chocolate milkshake), and both the optimism and discouragement of fellow patients. A.R. © AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine
School Library Journal
Gr 4-6-Although young readers today might only associate the word "polio" with a vaccination, this well-written account gives them a hard look at the devastating physical and emotional effects of the disease. In l949, there were 42,000 cases reported in the U.S.; the author was the only one stricken in her hometown that year. She writes in an approachable, familiar way, and readers will be hooked from the first page on. The author details her diagnosis, treatment, frustration, and pain. Perhaps the most startling part of the book is her description of the sudden onset of the illness, coming with no warning and leaving her paralyzed. Although this is an excellent record of the progress of the disease, it is also a fascinating account of how an ordinary girl with crushes and homecoming dreams had to live for part of her adolescence in an artificial, restricted environment. In the epilogue, Kehret describes her current battle with post-polio syndrome, and brings readers up to date on the lives of her fellow patients and friends at the Sheltering Arms Hospital. An honest and well-done book.-Christine A. Moesch, Buffalo & Erie County Public Library, NY
Kirkus Reviews
From a writer known for her fiction, a moving memoir about a 12-year-old who got polio in 1949 in Austin, Minnesota. Kehret (Earthquake Terror, 1996, etc.) describes the disease, the diagnosis, the severe symptoms, treatments, physical therapy, slow recovery, and return home with walking sticks—and how she was forever changed. After her fever broke and she lay paralyzed in the hospital, her parents delivered a big brown packet of letters from her classmates. "I had a strange feeling that I was reading about a different lifetime . . . none of this mattered. I had faced death. I had lived with excruciating pain and with loneliness and uncertainty about the future. Bad haircuts and lost ball games would never bother me again." There are touching black-and-white photographs of her roommates, who had already been there for ten years. Kehret's were the only parents who visited her each Sunday, and soon "adopted" her fellow polio victims.
A simple, direct, and sometimes self-deprecating style of writing tenderly draws readers into Kehret's experiences and the effects of the disease firsthand. Almost a half-century later, this lovely book refocuses attention on what matters most: health, love of family, friends, determination, generosity, and compassion.
From the Publisher
1996 Golden Kite Award for Nonfiction 1997 ALA Notable Books for Children 1997 Top Ten Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Readers 1997 Pen Center USA West Literary Award 1998 Dorothy Canfield Fisher Book Award (Vermont) 1998-1999 Mark Twain Award (Missouri) 1998 Joan Fassler Memorial Book Award 1998-1999 Texas Bluebonnet Award, Runner-Up 1998-1999 William Allen White Master Reading List (Kansas) 1998-1999 Pennsylvania Young Readers' Choice Award Master List 1998-1999 Sequoyah Book Award Master List (Oklahoma) 1998-1999 Volunteer State Book Award Master List (Tennessee) 1998-1999 NH Great Stone Face Children's Book Award Master List 1999 Sasquatch Reading Award Master List (Washington State) 2000-2001 Iowa Children's Choice Awards Master List 2001 Rebecca Caudill Young Readers' Book Award Master List (Illinois) 2001 Young Hoosier Book Award 2015 Bluestem Book Award Master List
"She writes in an approachable, familiar way, and readers will be hooked from the first page on…Although this is an excellent record of the progress of the disease, it is also a fascinating account of how an ordinary girl with crushes and homecoming dreams had to live for part of her adolescence in an artificial, restricted environment…An honest and well-done book."—School Library Journal
"A simple, direct, and sometimes self-deprecating style of writing tenderly draws readers into Kehret's experiences and the effects of the disease firsthand. Almost a half-century later, this lovely book refocuses attention on what matters most: health, love of family, friends, determination, generosity, and compassion."—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
