Sue Barton Student Nurse

This is the first book in the series. It starts with Sue joining forces with her soon to be best friends Kit and Connie on a wonderful and some times frightening adventure in nursing school. This is the way nursing should be taught ......with the students living in the hospital having classes in the morning and working with patients part of day. This book gives a delightful view of a bygone era. I highly reccomend this series for all ages. An interesting bit of trivia......Helen Boylston was living with Laura Ingalls Wilder while writing some of the Sue Barton books. Helen and Rose Wilder were friends.

35 years after reading this the first time, I found myself wanting to read all about Sue and her friends again. I have spent the last 32 years in nursing, and am still going strong in school as well as actual practice. The stories are fun, heartwarming and an excellent opportunity to re-visit the wonder of being new to the art of nursing. Great reading for a young person who thinks she (or he) might want to pursue a career in the hands and heart profession of Nursing.

I loved these books as a child, and 40 years later (30 of them, nursing) I still love them. The books are a fascinating time capsule of nursing in the 1930's through '50's. The surface of nursing has changed immensely, but the spirit of it is shown vividly in these stories: respectful, non-pitying caring for people in their crunch times. And on a third level, they're fine stories of growing up, in any age.

This is the first of the "Sue Barton" series. In this story, Sue enters nursing school. She meets two girls, Kit and Connie, who become her best friends. And during their first year there, Sue learns the techniques of nursing as she is gradually moved from one department to another in the course of her studies. One running concern the student nurses have, is whether they will have the courage to risk their lives in a life-or-death emergency. Sue is especially doubtful about this. Then, one night she herself is rushed into surgery for an emergency appendectomy. Then, while recovering on the ward, she suddenly comes up against a delirious patient who is trying to escape from the hospital. Can Sue stop her --even if the situation puts Sue herself into danger?This is a wonderful story. Having been first published in 1936, some of the dialogue is a little dated, but otherwise, the story moves quickly and builds to an exciting and logical climax. Highly recommended.

Sue B beats Cherry Ames hands down. Both are nursing series and I like them both but Sue Barton series includes character and plot development that the Ames books just don't have though they are amusing. Sue Barton is fully fleshed out character that you want to succeed. This book is about her probationary year in which she has several exciting adventures that firmly awaken her to why she wants to be a nurse.