SMALL STORIES. LIFELONG UNDERSTANDING.
Helping children and families make sense of health through illustrated childrens books, community workshops, and the next generation of health communicators
Discover the books ↓
01 / THE BOOKS
A child reads aloud. A family learns together. Our illustrated stories invite young readers to become curious, confident problem-solvers.
Follow a young doctor as she works through a patient’s pneumonia, one clue at a time. Our introductory story teaches children that doctors listen, observe, and reason.
Written and illustrated by Sneha Akurati and Sonia Murugesan.
Explore the illustrated spread ↗Books about asthma, sickle cell disease, and type 2 diabetes are in development. These stories focus on empowerment and self-management for conditions families live with.
Clinical accuracy, accessibility, and equity guide the collection’s clinical, editorial, and reading-level review.
02 / HOW THE STORIES WORK
Every book is built around SOAP, the clinical reasoning framework taught to medical students. For children, it becomes a simple way to listen, look, think, and help.
Subjective. Start with what the patient tells you. Every story matters.
Objective. Notice what can be checked, measured, or seen.
Assessment. Bring the clues together and consider what they mean.
Plan. Decide together what happens next.
03 / BEYOND THE PAGE
We aim to build literacy early, ease anxiety around care, counter medical myths, inspire careers, and help the next generation make informed decisions.
Free, medically accurate books distributed at the point of care. A story reaches a child, then carries learning into the whole household.
Live sessions bring the books to life. Readers work through cases as problem-solvers, turning a story into lasting understanding.
Medical and public health student ambassadors learn to communicate health clearly, then put those skills into practice in their communities.
04 / ABOUT US
The Health Literacy Coalition is a youth-led, academically backed public health initiative that creates medically reviewed children’s books about how doctors think. Each story follows a real clinical reasoning process, using the SOAP framework (Subjective, Objective, Assessment, Plan): listening to the patient’s story, looking for clues in the body, thinking through what they mean, and making a plan. Kids learn that a diagnosis isn’t magic. It’s careful thinking they can understand and take part in.
When children and families don’t understand a diagnosis or a care plan, medications go unused, follow-ups get missed, and preventable visits happen. Most patient education is written for adults. We write for the child, treating them as an informed participant in their own care.
A public health team supported by senior clinical and media advisors, bringing medicine, art, and community service together.
Medical student at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, with degrees in Global Health Studies and Studio Art.
Public Health and Health Informatics at Nova Southeastern University; graduate studies in Precision Health and Machine Learning AI at the University of Chicago.
Student at Gulliver Preparatory School and recipient of a community service award at Jackson Health.
Senior advisor for media, public relations, and funding strategy.
Senior Associate Dean for Student Affairs at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.
A nonprofit equipping future healthcare leaders with a foundation in public health, medicine, and digital health.
Featured in the coalition’s presentation as a strategic partner in health education.
05 / THE COALITION
We are building an alliance of academic medical centers to make health understandable through free books, community education, and student communicators.
Miller School of Medicine: book distribution, pilot workshops, an initial ambassador cohort, and pilot evaluation.
The presentation invites Brown to join the coalition and explore book distribution through clinical departments.
Exploring broader participation, a multi-site research network, and national distribution.
Bring free books to children and families through pediatrics, family medicine, and other points of care.
Connect your health system or hospital with a shared commitment to health literacy and community education.
Introduce community organizations and schools that can help reach underserved families through trusted local relationships.
“Health literacy is the public’s best defense against misinformation.”
The Health Literacy Coalition