Snowshoe Kate and the Hospital Built for Pennies

In the middle of a blizzard blackout, in a home deep in the northern woods of Wisconsin, a doctor delivers a baby by matchlight—one of many storied incidents in the life of Kate Pelham Newcomb (1885–1956). Dubbed the “Angel on Snowshoes” (one spread shows her literally flying over a snowy landscape), “Dr. Kate” would overcome nearly any obstacle to reach patients. This same determination helped her to defy societal expectations and weather personal setbacks. But Dr. Kate knew that the remote community needed more than what one determined doctor could provide, and her work inspires local schoolchildren to gather a million pennies for a hospital’s construction—a campaign that captures the hearts and the pocket change of the entire nation. Preus and Zollars excel at anchoring both human and numerical stories, conveying via first-person prose and crisp, digitally colored graphite images the expansive impact of both one doctor and all those pennies. Characters are portrayed with various skin tones. Creators’ notes conclude. Ages 4–8. (Oct.)