125. Boardwalk Babies

Boardwalk Babies. Marissa Moss. Illustrated by April Chu. 2021. 40 pages. [Source: Library]

First sentence: "Step right up and see the tiny babies! Babies so small, you could hold them in one hand! Don't pass the babies by!" Crowds followed the carnival barker to where he pointed, beyond Lionel the Lion-Faced man, Francis the Four-legged Woman, and the Sword Swallowers. Inside the brick building, the room didn't look like a side show at all. Nurses in crisp white uniforms took care of the tiniest babies imaginable, kept warm and snug in glass boxes hung from the walls.

Premise/plot: Boardwalk Babies is a nonfiction picture book. It showcases the work of Dr. Couney and his development of the incubator. When hospitals were skeptical and/or disinterested in using incubators to save premature/underweight babies, he decided to step up and save them himself. He had a "sideshow" display of babies set up at Coney Island which ran for quite a few decades! (I believe the sideshow ended in the mid-1940s when hospitals had more widely adopted incubators.) Dr. Couney married a nurse who worked at the show AND his daughter was born prematurely. An incubator saved their daughter's life! It isn't any wonder that she grew up to be a nurse too.

My thoughts: I loved, loved, loved, LOVED this book. I thought it was all kinds of awesome. I had never thought about WHO invented incubators before I read this book. I hadn't really taken the time to stop and consider what a miraculous difference it could make. Medicine and science has certainly changed through the centuries. This book mainly spans the mid 1890s to the mid 1940s. If you are looking for a GREAT story--a true story--packed with facts, then this one might just be worth your time.

I read it several times in one day. I *made* my mom read it as well. It is such a great book.

 

© 2021 Becky Laney of Young Readers