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Meet the trailblazing doctor whose determination, compassion, and vision helped to save lives and inspired a generation to make history.
As a child in the late 1800s, young Kate Pelham knew she wanted to have a career when she grew up, even though that wasn’t expected of women at the time. After losing her mother and then her fiancée at a young age, she decided to dedicate her life to becoming a doctor—a career path then largely closed to women. But Kate would not be deterred, and before long she was known throughout the Wisconsin Northwoods as, simply, Dr. Kate.
Written for ages 8–11, Dr. Kate’s Courageous Calling shares the remarkable story of a woman who challenged expectations, transformed her community, and inspired thousands through a lifetime of service. Readers will journey alongside Kate Pelham-Newcomb as she traverses snowy back roads—sometimes on snowshoes—to care for patients. They will discover how, as the local health officer, she established community health standards and helped improve water and milk sanitation throughout the Northwoods region.
The story reaches an unforgettable climax with the extraordinary Million Penny Campaign, led by local high school students—many of whom Dr. Kate had delivered as babies—to raise money for a desperately needed hospital. Their efforts attracted contributions from tens of thousands of people around the world, bringing in more than enough to build the Lakeland Memorial Hospital in Woodruff, Wisconsin.
Dr. Kate’s Courageous Calling is a story of perseverance, leadership, sacrifice, and a community that joined together to make a difference. Combining women’s history, local history, and a remarkable true story of civic engagement, this book celebrates a pioneering physician who healed her neighbors and inspired the world.

The story of a fascinating fish and the forward-thinking people who saved them in Wisconsin 

For millennia, sturgeon swam the waterways of Wisconsin. Before the 1800s, an estimated eleven million sturgeon lived in Lake Michigan alone. Menominee and Ojibwe people depended on the fish for food and harvested them sustainably. But in the early 1900s, the lake sturgeon was near extinction. Saving Our Sturgeon tells the remarkable story of lake sturgeon in Wisconsin, the conservation efforts to save the species, and what is being done to keep the population healthy and thriving today.  

Readers will learn about the natural history of the lake sturgeon—its anatomy, behavior, and habitat—and the factors that threatened its survival, from overharvesting to the building of dams that prevented sturgeon from reaching spawning areas. The book, written for young readers aged eleven and up, explains how government agencies, conservationists, and citizen groups worked together to save the sturgeon population in Wisconsin. 

Saving Our Sturgeon includes a chapter about the Menominee Nation’s work to revitalize cultural traditions focused on the sturgeon and restore access to the fish on their reservation. The book also highlights how young people can get involved with sturgeon conservation efforts. 

A great resource for classroom use, Saving Our Sturgeon contains maps, photos, and diagrams, plus a glossary of terms, a timeline of events, a Who’s Who list of individuals and groups featured in the book, and a bibliography that highlights kid-friendly sources to learn more. Young readers will learn basic facts about sturgeon biology, what it means for a species to be threatened or endangered, and how scientists use data to support repopulation. This inspiring book shares a conservation success story about one remarkable (and plenty peculiar) species of fish and shows young readers how they, too, can help protect these incredible creatures.