Perri Klass (born 1958)[1] is an American pediatrician and writer who has published extensively about her medical training and pediatric practice.
In 1984, as a third-year medical student, she wrote a series of columns, published in the New York Times in the series of "Hers Columns", describing, among other things, the uncertainty of drawing blood for the very first time, the peculiar locutions of hospital jargon, and the emotional subtext of crying in the hospital.
In addition to her accounts of medical training, her books include a memoir in two voices, Every Mother is a Daughter: the Neverending Quest for Success, Inner Peace, and a Really Clean Kitchen, coauthored with her mother, Sheila Solomon Klass; and Quirky Kids: Understanding and Helping Your Child Who Doesn't Fit In, coauthored with Eileen Costello, MD.
Perri Klass’s novels include The Mystery of Breathing, Other Women’s Children (also made into a Lifetime TV movie), and Recombinations.
She writes a regular column in Knitters Magazine, and her knitting essays have been collected in the book Two Sweaters for My Father.
[4] Klass has combined her interest in medicine and literacy to help promote the importance of books to children, through her work with Reach Out and Read.
Klass has trained doctors and nurses around the United States and elsewhere, including Portugal and the Philippines, in strategies to incorporate books and literacy guidance into pediatric primary care.