Central Kansas Library System

The author describes her battle against polio when she was thirteen and her efforts to overcome its debilitating effects.

It is the summer of 1964. In Tupelo, Mississippi, the town of Elvis's birth, tensions are mounting over civil-rights demonstrations occurring ever more frequently--and violently--across the state. But in Paige Dunn's small, ramshackle house, there are more immediate concerns. Challenged by the effects of the polio she contracted during her last month of pregnancy, Paige is nonetheless determined to live as normal a life as possible and to raise her...

"As a child with polio in the early 1900s, swimming set Ethelda Bleibtrey free. The water released her from her pain and helped her build strong muscle--and a powerful spirit. From then on, from the New York beaches to the 1920 Olympics, Ethelda made a splash wherever she went"--

In autumn 1932 Tommy McKnight, a twelve-year-old boy disabled by polio, and bullied at school for his disability--but inspired by Franklin Roosevelt's story and his campaign for the presidency, decides to run for the seventh grade class presidency at his Brooklyn school.

In 1940s New Orleans, Fish Elliot is a polio-survivor with a knack for inventing and building things, and his African American neighbor Olympia is a girl with a talent for messing things up, but they are united in an effort to save a starving stray dog they call Liberty--and when Liberty is caged by a nasty farmer, they find an unlikely ally in a German prisoner of war, Erich, who is not much older than the two children.

"She gave up everything - and changed the world. A riveting novel based on the true story of the woman who stopped a pandemic, from the bestselling author of Mrs. Poe. In 1940s and '50s America, polio is as dreaded as the atomic bomb. No one's life is untouched by this disease that kills or paralyzes its victims, particularly children. Outbreaks of the virus across the country regularly put American cities in lockdown. Some of the world's best minds...

In the summer of 1952, Betsy sees her vacation fun overshadowed by the spreading polio epidemic, while her mother and other scientists work frantically to develop a vaccine for the crippling disease.

The Master's Muse is an exquisite, deeply affecting novel about the love affair between two artistic legends: George Balanchine, widely considered the Shakespeare of dance, and his wife and muse, Tanny Le Clercq. A talented young ballerina whose dreams were coming true, Tanny was married to the love of her life, George Balanchine. She danced the best roles, and was featured in fashion magazines and television dramas. She socialized with renowned artists...

When a waiting world learned on April 12, 1955, that Jonas Salk had successfully created a vaccine to prevent poliomyelitis, he became a hero overnight. Born in a New York tenement, humble in manner, Salk had all the makings of a twentieth-century icon-a knight in a white coat. In the wake of his achievement, he received a staggering number of awards and honors; for years his name ranked with Gandhi and Churchill on lists of the most revered people....