A farm kid battles polio—and discovers his inner strength.
Young Jerry Apps was an active and rambunctious boy. He loved playing sports with friends and always helped with chores on his family’s farm. Then, in the winter of 1947, everything changed. Twelve-year-old Jerry was diagnosed with polio, a highly infectious and potentially deadly disease that, at the time, had no vaccine or cure. Faced with fear and uncertainty, Jerry has to muster the physical and emotional strength to navigate his affliction.
In Stumbling, author and illustrator Erin Kant Barnard presents Jerry Apps’s remarkable journey of resilience and recovery in a visually rich graphic nonfiction format. Drawing from Apps’s own memoir, Limping Through Life, and conversations with him late in his life, Kant Barnard weaves a compelling narrative that reveals the stark realities of Jerry’s illness—the fear of never fully healing, the isolation of weeks spent indoors, the small but meaningful milestones toward recovery—interspersed with moments of humor and hope. Stumbling also captures the love and steadfast support Jerry receives from his family and a caring teacher who refuses to let him fall behind.
The book’s backmatter expands the story beyond Apps’s experience by sharing educational information on the polio virus and the polio epidemic of the mid-twentieth century. Kant Bernard provides additional details about Apps’s long and productive life (he passed away in 2025 at age 91) and his place as a beloved and prolific storyteller and rural historian.  
With its blend of heart, history, and hope, Stumbling is a powerful true story of courage, perseverance, and positivity in hard times. Readers will find in young Jerry Apps an inspiring role model for how to face their own challenges head on.