49thshelf icon49thshelfAug 20, 2026 ~1 min source read

Notes from a Children's Librarian: Health and Medicine

* Humour abounds in You're in Good Paws, by Maureen Fergus, when the human boy, Leo, visits the hospital for a tonsillectomy, but it's full of animals—both patients and staff! The waiting room includes a cat with its head stuck in a fish bowl, a worm with a fish hook through its belly, a blind bat, a snake whose swallowed some inanimate objects.

Notes from a Children's Librarian: Health and Medicine

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* Humour abounds in You're in Good Paws, by Maureen Fergus, when the human boy, Leo, visits the hospital for a tonsillectomy, but it's full of animals—both patients and staff!

The waiting room includes a cat with its head stuck in a fish bowl, a worm with a fish hook through its belly, a blind bat, a snake whose swallowed some inanimate objects.

This story lowers hospital visit anxiety by going through the steps: weigh-in, temperature check, blood pressure monitor, changing into a gown.

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  • Humour abounds in You're in Good Paws, by Maureen Fergus, when the human boy, Leo, visits the hospital for a tonsillectomy, but it's full of animals—both patients and staff! The waiting room includes a cat with its head stuck in a fish bowl, a worm with a fish hook through its belly, a blind bat, a snake whose swallowed some inanimate objects. This story lowers hospital visit anxiety by going through the steps: weigh-in, temperature check, blood pressure monitor, changing into a gown.

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  • There's also a final washing up which leaves Leo looking like a fluffy poodle.

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There is 'paw sanitizer' dispenser on the wall. The surgeon is a tiny mouse and Leo is worried about his 'lack of opposable thumbs.' He wakes post-surgery to find he and every other patient wearing identical cone collars with a nurse asking him not to chew his leg if she removes it. * <a href="https://49thshelf.com/Books/S/Scaredy-Squirrel-Vis...

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