Small Steps: The Year I Got Polio

Small Steps: The Year I Got Polio is a memoir of author Peg Kehret's childhood experience of polio. The book won the Golden Kite Award.

In September 1949, Peg collapses at school. She goes home with a high fever and around midnight, she starts to vomit. Her parents take her to the hospital where she is diagnosed with three different kinds of polio. She spends a little time at Sheltering Arms before she is transferred to University Hospital because she needs a respirator. Peg was placed under an oxygen tent to help her breathe a little easier. After a few days, she is allowed to move out of isolation but all of the things in her room are burned because they may contain the virus. Her new room has a roommate named Tommy who is put into an iron lung. Peg reads to him when she’s feeling better and they listen to “The Lone Ranger” on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Every day, she changes the hot pack part of the Kenny treatment to hot baths instead. After she starts to recover, the so called “Mrs. Crab” does the stretching exercises. After she improves, she is moved back to the Sheltering Arms hospital where she rooms with three other girls that have polio. The girls names are Dorothy, Alice and Renee.The girls all partake in the Christmas program, where Peg is able to walk with a boy to the stage.

Characters

• Peg: Main character and narrator of the story, diagnosed with polio.
• Karen: Peg's best friend at school
• Tommy: Peg's hospital roommate at University Hospital, in an iron lung.
• Renee: Sheltering Arms roommate, goes home for Christmas.
• Shirley: Sheltering Arms roommate, who has the worst polio.
• Alice: Sheltering Arms roommate, who has been there for ten years. Her parents didn't want to take care of her because she was so badly crippled, and she became a ward of the state.
• Dorothy: Sheltering Arms roommate, who longs to be in leg braces to go home. Is able to return home, because her family built her a ramp.
• Mrs. Crab: Peg's physical therapist at University Hospital, whom Peg doesn't like. Gives her Torture Time.
• Art: Peg's older, good looking brother, whom Dorothy adores. Art is a College student.
• Dr. Bevis: Peg's doctor at University Hospital, to whom she has a crush on and she promises to walk for him one day.
• Miss. Ballard: Peg's physical therapist at Sheltering Arms that she's very fond of.
• Beth and Bob: They are Peg's parents who bring treats for Peg and the girls every Sunday.

Settings

The story takes place in Peg's school, Peg's house, at the Sheltering Arms, and at the University Hospital

Reception

Small Steps won the Dorothy Canfield Fisher Children's Book Award.