CLEVELAND, Ohio (WEWS) — It’s a book so many people know and love — "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day."

For 5-year-old Zion Crenshaw, the book is a much-needed escape.

“It’s the little things that make people happy,” said mom Shawanna Crenshaw.

Her six children and foster children are all patients at MetroHealth in Cleveland, Ohio.

She brought Zion in for his wellness check and shots.

The books in the waiting room and the books handed to him by the doctor when he leaves make a big difference.

“If they’re getting a shot, they’re sitting there reading a book, it relaxes my children,” Shawanna said. “So I’m glad the books are there.”

They’re in the doctor's office because of a national nonprofit called Reach Out and Read, founded in 1989 by Dr. Robert Needleman, a physician at MetroHealth.

“He thought about, 'What if we put books in the waiting room, what would happen?' And the books disappeared,” explained Lynn Foran, executive director of Reach Out and Read Greater Cleveland.

So from there, they started including them in child wellness checks.

More than 200 doctors and nurse practitioners across nearly 40 locations in greater Cleveland are trained in early literacy by Reach Out and Read.

There are books in the waiting room, exam rooms, and stacks and stacks of books, free to grab on your way out.

Pediatrician Dr. Anna Winfield has been part of the program for decades. She said the improvements she sees are remarkable.

“Ten years ago, I would give people a book and they would say, ‘That’s the only book I have at home’ and now you give them books and they say, ‘Oh I have plenty of books’ — but they still need more!” Winfield said.

Research shows reaching kids at an early age helps with kindergarten readiness, parental engagement, and is even beneficial for maternal well-being.

Book "prescriptions" detailing specific reading material can even help parents feel more at ease.

“I think a lot of our parents who are at higher risk for low literacy get nervous about reading with their kids because they’re not confident in their own skills,” Winfield explained. “And if you show them what to do with the book and their kid, their eyes kind of light up.”

The key to Reach Out and Read’s success has been rolling the importance of literacy into well-child visits, talking about it at the same level as safe sleep and good nutrition, and partnering with doctors who are trusted by families.

“They’re the messengers,” Foran said. “And parents, as you know being a mom of young children, you look to their advice and guidance to help you support the healthy development of your child.”

Reach Out and Read targets children six months to 5 years old. It has reached more than 4.2 million children across the country

This story was originally reported by Homa Bash on news5cleveland.com.

Kevin Prindle has been spending a lot of nervous hours in an Indianapolis hospital.

"I never would have imagined that I would've spent, you know, two weeks of the first two months of my sons' lives in the ICU," he said.

Nurses and doctors are treating his 3-month-old twin sons, Harper and Kennedy, who were born premature and are now fighting a respiratory virus called RSV. Prindle believes the twins caught RSV from their older siblings.

"I'm running on coffee and prayers at the moment," Prindle said.

Doctors say RSV itself is fairly common. For most kids, symptoms are like the common cold. But in some cases RSV can inflame the lungs and make it tough to breathe. And the timing of the spike in cases happening now around the country is a bit of a medical mystery.

Newsy asked pediatric infectious disease specialist, Dr. Samuel Dominguez, how unusual it is for doctors to see the disease in the summer.

"This is extremely unusual," he said. "And during my whole career I've never ever seen RSV in the summer."

At Children's Hospital Colorado, they're blaming RSV for a 60 percent spike in kids admitted to intensive care units and as much as a 50 percent jump in emergency room visits.

"It is serious," Dominguez said. "And we, we are concerned about these kids and we want to keep them as healthy and get them ... better as quickly as possible."

RSV cases are climbing across the South, in the Southwest and Midwest and Kentucky, where doctors are warning parents to watch for red flags. 

Pediatrician Dr. Elizabeth Hawse said to look for "nostrils flaring, really moving the chest and stomach to breathe. Like, usually, we just breathe very easily with our chest. Babies can do something called grunting ... with every breath."

Why the summer spike? One theory is that, normally, older kids are exposed to RSV at school in winter months. But with masks, social distancing and remote learning last school year, young immune systems didn't get a chance to build up a defense.

"When you get exposed to viruses over and over again you get a little bit of a boost in your immune system against those viruses," Dominguez said. "Now we have a whole other year of kids who had no exposure to RSV, and so we have a large number of kids who are more susceptible to getting RSV and potentially more severe RSV.

Newsy asked what advice Dominguez has for parents as more kids got back into classrooms and whether they should be factoring in potential RSV exposure in deciding whether to have their children wear a mask at school.

"We support wearing masks in school," Dominguez said. "I think that's the best protection we can provide for actually all respiratory viruses and so it will not only protect kids from the spread of SARS COVID, too, but also protect kids against the spread of RSV."

While it is RSV that's driving the spike in admissions at places like Children's Hospital Colorado, doctors worry that kids who are exposed to the virus may be more susceptible to the impacts of COVID-19. That is why they are urging anyone who's around kids to get the COVID vaccine, wear a mask indoors and if a child is sick – don't send them to school. 

This story was originally reported by Clayton Sandell on Newsy.com.