“Did you know that you took your first test just one minute after you were born?” This spirited portrait of Dr. Virginia Apgar, inventor of the APGAR scale for newborns, paints her as smart, energetic, and irrepressible. Growing up, Ginny ignored both expectations and limitations placed on girls and women and did the things that made her happy.

During the Great Depression, she gave up her dream of becoming a surgeon to study anesthesiology, which had a greater rate of employment, becoming the second female board-certified anesthesiologist in the United States. It was through this work, attending many baby deliveries to monitor the mother’s health, that Ginny realized the need to assess the condition of newborns. Her five-point scale, created in 1949 and later officially named APGAR, had become standard practice through the United States and beyond by the early 1960s. This buoyant picture book biography focusing on the high points in Ginny’s life and career includes a biographical essay, timeline, and sources at volume’s end. (Ages 7–10

A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year

A delightful and distinctive picture book biography about Dr. Virginia Apgar, who invented the eponymous test for evaluating newborn health that’s used worldwide every day.

The Apgar Score is known the world over: a test given to babies to determine their health moments after they are born. Less well-known is the story of the brilliant, pioneering woman who invented it.

Born at the turn of the twentieth century, Virginia “Ginny” Apgar soared above what girls were expected to do—or not do. She wasn’t quiet, she wore all sorts of outfits, she played the sports she wanted to—and she pursued the career she chose, graduating near the top of her class at Columbia University and becoming only the second board-certified female anesthesiologist in the United States. The simple five-step test she created—scribbled on the back of a piece of paper in answer to a trainee’s question—became the standard and continues to impact countless newborn babies’ lives today.

Ginny adored science, hated cooking, drove fast, made her own violins, earned a pilot’s license, and traveled the world. Here, Carrie Pearson’s jaunty storytelling and Nancy Carpenter’s playful illustrations capture the energy and independence of a woman who didn’t slow down for anything—and changed newborn care forever.