“Not too long ago parents lived with the near certainty of losing a child or two; Perri Klass captures the drama of science and society’s triumph over that abysmal reality. As we grapple with new and unimaginable scourges, the lessons in this gripping, personal and beautifully researched chronicle could not be more relevant.”

—Abraham Verghese, MD, author of Cutting for Stone

 

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“All readers with an interest in the history of health care—and all parents who bite their nails over the relatively rare dangers facing their children now—will be riveted by this moving and compassionate account of how a common tragedy was transformed into an unusual one.”

—Anne Fadiman, author of The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down

 

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“With her broad pediatric knowledge and warm understanding of parental attachments, Perri Klass tells the dramatic story of how medical science transformed childhood in the twentieth century . . . . an important contribution to the history of childhood that can provide comfort and insight to all of us.”

—Paula S. Fass, author of The End of American Childhood

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“In today’s world of pandemics and medical alarm, it is especially comforting to look to history for the paths that lay ahead. . . Starting at a time when Americans helplessly accepted the death of their children as a cruel fact of Nature, Klass beautifully demonstrates how the fusion of medical science and public health led to the vaccines, antibiotics, safety measures, and self-help volumes that saved countless young lives while revolutionizing the ways in which we map our children’s future. Elegantly written, filled with memorable characters and events, [this book] is the perfect prescription for the uncertainties of our time.”

—David Oshinsky,
Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Polio: An American Story

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“. . . the pediatrician Perri Klass describes how the world—and with it, parenting—has been transformed by declining infant and child mortality over the past century.”

—Kate Julian, The Atlantic

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