My First Visit to Hospital

by Rebecca Hunter

First Times explores exciting and memorable first events in young children's lives. Each title has been carefully planned to show a child responding to a real life situation exploring both their worries and their excitement. Specially commissioned photographs take the reader though the narrative giving lots of opportunities for sharing and discussing experiences. Two levels of text offer the chance for young children to join in if they can at either level or simply to enjoy looking at the pictures. Notes for Teachers and Parents provide invaluable support and provide further information about how to deal with these first experiences.

24 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2007

Reviews

[Alexandra Welsh · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read the nonfiction book entitled My First Visit to Hospital. It begins with a boy, Jonathan, introducing himself and saying that he is going to talk about his first time visiting the hospital. Then there is a table of contents that name the headings for each part in the story. The little boy cannot hear well and is going into the hospital to have an operation to put grommets in his ears. His mum helps him pack his bag and they go off to the hospital. Nurse Hazel checks Jonathan's vital signs and admits him into the hospital. Jonathan changes into a theatre gown, aka- hospital gown, and an anaesthetic injection. He has the operation and wakes up, goes into the recovery room, sees his dad, listens to a story, and has a drink and toast. Jonathan goes and plays in the playroom in hospital then he is released and ready to go home.
The book is for the primary age group because it is a short story, has photographs, but also has some more advanced vocabulary words.
There are not illustrations in the story, but there are photographs. The photographs depict the words in the story well. Jonathan appears scared and unsure at times, which is understandable. The nurses and doctors are smiling and look friendly.
I did not particularly like this story. There was a table of contents and an index, but there was not a glossary in which more difficult terms were defined, like grommets, anaesthetic injection, trolley, ward. This story takes place in the U.K., so some of the terminology is different from the terms we use in the U.S., like theatre gown and mum. I feel as though there are more quality stories about going to the hospital for the first time.