Book Club – Small Great Things
Book Club – Small Great Things
Ruth Jefferson is a labor and delivery nurse at a Connecticut hospital with more than twenty years’ experience. Ruth begins a routine checkup on a newborn, only to be told a few minutes later that she’s been reassigned to another patient. The parents are white supremacists and don’t want Ruth, who is African American, to touch their child. The hospital complies with their request, but the next day, the baby goes into cardiac distress while Ruth is alone in the nursery. Does she obey orders or intervene?
Ruth hesitates before performing CPR and, as a result, is charged with a serious crime. As the trial moves forward, Ruth and her public defender, Kennedy, must gain each other’s trust, and come to see that what they’ve been taught their whole lives about others—and themselves—might be wrong.