Small Steps: The Year I Got Polio
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Overview
In a riveting story of courage and hope, Peg Kehret writes about months spent in a hospital when she was twelve, first struggling to survive a severe case of polio, then slowly learning to walk again.
The author describes her battle against polio when she was thirteen and her efforts to overcome its debilitating effects.
Synopsis
In a riveting story of courage and hope, Peg Kehret writes about months spent in a hospital when she was twelve, first struggling to survive a severe case of polio, then slowly learning to walk again.
Children's Literature
In 1949, at the age of twelve, Peg Kehret (then Schulze) became the only child in Austin, Minnesota to contract polio. She details the intense fear and horror the disease evoked in her and others. Many doctors, nurses and therapists who rendered care were instrumental in her recovery, but she clearly depicts how devastating the lack of empathy from health care workers can be for seriously ill patients. Most of her seven months of hospitalization were spent at a rehabilitation hospital where she formed intense friendships with her roommates, friendships she likens to those formed in wartime foxholes and trenches. Her story never descends to self-pity, in fact, she credits her experience for giving her character strengths she might never have developed. Humor bubbles up in this endearing, human saga. Vintage photographs are provided.
Editorials
Children's Literature -
In 1949, at the age of twelve, Peg Kehret (then Schulze) became the only child in Austin, Minnesota to contract polio. She details the intense fear and horror the disease evoked in her and others. Many doctors, nurses and therapists who rendered care were instrumental in her recovery, but she clearly depicts how devastating the lack of empathy from health care workers can be for seriously ill patients. Most of her seven months of hospitalization were spent at a rehabilitation hospital where she formed intense friendships with her roommates, friendships she likens to those formed in wartime foxholes and trenches. Her story never descends to self-pity, in fact, she credits her experience for giving her character strengths she might never have developed. Humor bubbles up in this endearing, human saga. Vintage photographs are provided.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, NYKirkus 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.