“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