Customer Reviews

Small Steps: The Year I Got Polio (Anniversary Edition)

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In Small Steps: The Year I Got Polio by Peg Kehret, Peg has plenty of friends, a brother, and two loving parents. She's the average middle school girl. How much more normal can you get? One day while in choir class, she has this terrible muscle spasm. That's the beginning of what made her unique.
Peg's temperature rises, and is taken to the hospital, only to find out she has polio, the only case in her town of that year. Peg is immediately put into isolation, where she becomes paralyzed from the neck down, and cannot breathe properly. She develops not only one type of polio, not two, but three types. The author made me feel like I was there, witnessing Peg's discomfort.
Read about Peg's feelings as her polio worsens, then gets better. Share her triumphs and disappointments. You'll be caught up in this book, and you won't want to put it down.
Peg Kehret tells what happens in Peg's fight against polio. The author really makes you feel like you're there. I think people of all ages looking for a good drama will really enjoy this book. It teaches you what happens when you're willing to try anything to get things the way you want them. This book takes you away from your world, and into Peg Shulze's.

MorgTC & CBTherese

Kristie Loftus
12/6/04

Small Steps: The Year I Got Polio
Peg Kehret
0807574589

Have you ever thought of what it would be like one day, waking up, feeling completely fine, and then you have a muscle spasm, and you find out later that you have a disease that can severely hurt you, or even kill you? In the book, Small Steps: The Year I Got Polio, Peg comes to find that she has three different types of polio. She started off with just a muscle spasm, thinking it was no big deal. She later finds out she has polio. Then she finds out that not only does she have polio, but three different types. She meets a few people in her journey through different hospitals. This story is a page-turner; it's amazing to see how strong some people really are, not on the outside, but on the inside as well.
This book is incredible. People think that their lives are so terrible, but really when you think about it, and you read this book, you realize things aren't as bad as they seem. I mean, I am not one that loves to read, but to hear someone else's story, and about there life, it's shocking. I honestly, would never be able to deal with what she went through. She went from hospital to hospital; she dealt with the mean nurse that made her put hot rags on her skin to help loosen her muscles. I would never be able to handle the stretching, and the hot rags or any of that. It shocked me to hear that polio can kill you. Some of the girls in the room that she stayed with had polio also, Alice has had it since she was little, and her family didn't want a blob sitting/laying around all day. One of the other girls had to lay in an iron-lung, because her lungs were not strong enough to let her breathe on her own. It's sad how none of them can walk very well because of polio. They either walk with walking sticks, wheelchairs, or they walk very slowly with out anything. I could not put the book down. I thought about my life compared to Peg's and the other girls, I would be stupid to try to make people feel bad for me considering what other people go through. I think anybody who likes biographies would enjoy this book. Like I said before, I am not a reader, but I could not put it down. It's hurtful to read about other people's problems, but you learn that life isn't as bad as you might seem to think it is.

Small Steps: The Year I got Polio should be read by teens,because it shows how to overcome struggles. It is about a young girl who has been dearly loved all of her life, when suddenly she is ripped out of a loving home and forced to live in a isolation ward. One of her struggles is being paralyzed from the neck down. She cannot move any part of her body except her head. Peg is faced with many hardships throughout the book. For instance she has to endure Sister Kenny treatments which are extremely painful. Overall this book was a fantastic novel about a young girl facing obstacles.

Small steps: The Year I Got Polio is an extraordinary book by Peg Kehret. This non-fiction book tells the true story of Pegs struggle to overcome polio. Suddenly at age twelve Peg is paralyzed from the neck down. With the wide spread rumors of what polio is Peg starts out with little hope to survive, let alone to overcome this disease. After the diagnosis is confirmed Peg is brought to a hospital over one hundred miles away from her home. At first Peg is overcome with a fear that can hardly be comforted by her parents and her older brother. After starting out in a hospital designed strictly for polio patients with severe cases, Peg is suddenly moved to THE SHELTERING ARMS (a hospital for polio patients who may have a chance to survive and rehabilitate), there Peg not only gains strength from herself but also from her new roommates and doctors. It is from her new roommates at The Sheltering Arms that she learns what friendship is really about.
This book is a wonderful book that expresses the authors true thoughts and emotions in such a way that you cant stop reading because you dont know what Peg will be thinking next.

read this book! I am an education major, and have been reading books written for adolescents as a part of a year-long assignment. From the first page, I was hooked on Peg Kehret's honest and moving account of her struggle with polio as a 13-year-old girl. I read it in a day, and it has given me a new insight to what polio means. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for something new and different that encourages them and teaches them. When I finished, I wanted to read it all over again. This is an especially good book for adolescents. Enjoy! :0)

A Review by Erika

Can you imagine being a young child in the hospital unable to move any part of your body? This happened to Peg after she got a disease called Polio. Peg was put in an intensive care unit at the nearest hospital and soon moved to another hospital for more intensive treatment. Peg was trapped inside a machine they refer to as the Iron Lung. After a few months she was released from that hospital only to go back to the one she was at before. But before she left she promised the doctor that she would come back and be able to walk for him. Will peg ever get to walk for him?

I really liked this book because you want to keep reading and its full of excitement and disappointment like when Peg takes her first steps with her new walking sticks. As the story is being told Peg, the patient and the writer, is always telling her feelings and giving you insight to how she felt during that time. The feelings that you have for Peg go from happy to sad and excitement and anticipation, like when Peg first learned that she had Polio. I really like how Peg uses descriptive words and phrases to describe times like her Physical Therapy sessions, she called them Torture Time because the stretching was so stressful and hurt her very week and unused muscles. I personally don't have any complaints about this book, it was great!

I would definitely recommend this book, "Small Steps, The year I got Polio," to teens and older. It's a great easy read and awesome if you like to read reality books. If you like how this book sounds then go check it out!

The first chapter gives you that feeling that you don't want to put the book down. My dad and I were reading before I went to bed and he said, "I'm reading the 13th chapter and I loved it already! I can't believe it." There is one boring chapter, but other wise that this book is the bomb! Yes I do say that word. Anway back to the book. It inspired me so much that I read it in 3-4 days. The way I found about this book was from B.O.B. Also know as Battle of the Books. I loved this book so much that I want to buy it! (that doesn't happen very often). I saw the word "Polio" in the title and I said "oh this looks good!" Hopefully you will feel the same way. Read it! It is ofcourse a true story! good Luck!

Although I've of course held of polio, and gotten polio vaccines for my boys, I knew very little about it before reading this book. After reading it, I am eager to find out more about the world of polio. This book brings to mind other hospital stories such as the wonderful but now out of print The Plague and I. It's interesting how the author adjusted to life in the treatment center and has trouble re-adjusting to "real life". I loved hearing about what happened to her friends with polio in their later life, and felt truly sad to read the author has post-polio syndrome. I would recommend this book for both older children and adults.

This was an excellent book that very accurately described what children experienced when they contracted polio in the 1940's and 1950's. It was well written to be read quickly by an older child or by an adult to any child or just for their own education. Peg Kehret's memories will help as a base in any discussion of polio; what happens, how it was treated and in some cases overcome, and what health problems reoccur many years later.

I really liked this book because it told you what it meant to have polio. Peg Khert told you in her own words what it was like to be a child with polio. She writes how deadly and dangerous polio was in 1949. It was heartfelt and she made friends along her hard journey. I think that kids and adults should read this book.