Overview

A fascinating and inspiring picture book biography about Vivien Thomas, a pioneer of children’s heart surgery and trailblazer for Black people in STEM. Vivien Thomas always loved solving problems and figuring out how things worked. In high school, inspired by his family physician, he decided he would become a doctor. Despite losing his college savings during the 1930 bank panic, Vivien stayed dedicated to making his dream a reality, a trait that would serve him all his life. Vivien secured a lab assistant position at Vanderbilt University and later moved to Johns Hopkins Hospital, where he and his mentor developed a groundbreaking procedure to cure blue baby syndrome, which led to them performing the first open-heart surgery on a child. With the power of his passion, perseverance, and dedication to learning (and without any formal college education), Vivien saved thousands of lives.

Full Product Details

9781481476669

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Reviews

As a boy, Vivien Thomas dreamed of becoming a doctor, even though Black doctors were rare in his community. . . . After accepting a position as assistant to Dr. Wilfred Blalock, head of the surgical research laboratory at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Thomas patiently shared his knowledge with medical students. Later, he followed Dr. Blalock to Johns Hopkins, where they worked to develop a surgical technique to save the lives of children with “blue baby syndrome."" Schoettler approaches her subject with admiration and offers several examples of the roadblocks that prevented him from fully achieving his dream of attending medical school. This attractive picture-book biography encourages students to aim high, work hard, and keep moving toward their goals. Illustrated with handsome scenes reflecting Thomas' era, Schoettler's engaging narrative emphasizes his devotion to his dream of becoming a doctor and the great respect he earned from others along the way. -- Booklist * 4/1/2026 * A tribute to a pioneering African American cardiac surgeon. Growing up in the South as the sort of person who “loved solving problems and figuring things out,” Vivien Thomas never enrolled in college but worked his way up as a white medical researcher’s lab assistant to become an expert on the malady known as “blue baby syndrome.” Breaking the color bar, he joined a team of white surgeons at Johns Hopkins that in 1944 used techniques that Thomas developed on dogs to perform the first successful open-heart surgery on a child. Thomas then went on to perform and teach the procedure there for many years while, Schoettler points out, being so underpaid that he had to tend bar and work other jobs to make ends meet. He was not, she goes on pointedly, even awarded a doctoral degree until 1976, when he was 65 years old, or given proper credit in the procedure’s formal name until 2023. Still, the author tells his story in positive tones overall, reserving further specifics about the discrimination he faced to her afterword. Walthall’s illustrations add helpful details of the surgery to views of the sober Thomas hard at work, later surrounded by increasingly diverse groups of his patients and students. A sympathetic profile of an achiever well worth knowing better. -- Kirkus * March 1, 2026 *

A tribute to a pioneering African American cardiac surgeon. Growing up in the South as the sort of person who “loved solving problems and figuring things out,” Vivien Thomas never enrolled in college but worked his way up as a white medical researcher’s lab assistant to become an expert on the malady known as “blue baby syndrome.” Breaking the color bar, he joined a team of white surgeons at Johns Hopkins that in 1944 used techniques that Thomas developed on dogs to perform the first successful open-heart surgery on a child. Thomas then went on to perform and teach the procedure there for many years while, Schoettler points out, being so underpaid that he had to tend bar and work other jobs to make ends meet. He was not, she goes on pointedly, even awarded a doctoral degree until 1976, when he was 65 years old, or given proper credit in the procedure’s formal name until 2023. Still, the author tells his story in positive tones overall, reserving further specifics about the discrimination he faced to her afterword. Walthall’s illustrations add helpful details of the surgery to views of the sober Thomas hard at work, later surrounded by increasingly diverse groups of his patients and students. A sympathetic profile of an achiever well worth knowing better. -- Kirkus * March 1, 2026 *

Author Information

Joan Schoettler is a children’s author and professor of children’s literature and storytelling at California State University, Fresno. Her book The Honey Jar won the Gold Medal for Juvenile Books at the 2024 California Book Awards and was a 2024 Bank Street College Best Children’s Book of the Year. Joan lives in central California with her husband. Visit her at JoanSchoettler.com. Steffi Walthall is an illustrator and character designer born and raised in Virginia. She received her BFA in Game Development from the Savannah College of Art & Design (SCAD). Steffi focuses on crafting a diverse range of characters and unique stories and is the illustrator of Joan Schoettler’s A Doctor at Heart, Chris Barton’s Moving Forward, and J.E. Bright’s Wonder Woman: The Way of the Amazons. For more information about Steffi, please visit SteffiWalthallArt.com.

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