When Polio Came Home: How Ordinary People Overcame Extraordinary Challenges
BookMiddle SchoolHigh SchoolPhysical Therapist

When Polio Came Home: How Ordinary People Overcame Extraordinary Challenges

Anderson, Connie

Why we picked it

This collection of 41 firsthand accounts from polio survivors and their families captures the fear, resilience, and determination of an epidemic era when rehabilitation was the primary response available to medicine.

Our review

Forty-one stories from the people who lived through polio in the 1940s and 50s: children hospitalized for months or years, families struggling to cope, and survivors determined to be normal despite the wheelchair or weakened limb. This firsthand collection captures the fear and resilience of an era when polio was rampant and rehabilitation was everything medicine could offer.

About this book

From the product listing

When Polio Came Home is about how ordinary people (and their families) overcame extraordinary challenges in the 1940s and 50 when polio was rampant. Children as young as eleven months were hospitalized for weeks, monthseven years. How did they cope? How did the families (and siblings) cope? The poliovirus attacked all ages, leaving some with no aftereffects, other confined to a wheelchair for life. These 41 stories are told by those whose lives were affected, and how they wanted to be normal as children, and live a full lifewhich they did.

Resource details

Resource type
Book
Age ranges
Middle School, High School
Good for kids who are
Social, Investigative
Based on its careers · What is RIASEC?