Cole and The Crooked Flower

One of the parents on an email group I belong to has written a book to explain scoliosis to children called "Cole and The Crooked Flower". What a great idea! Below is the blurb from his website:

My son was born in 2008 with a rare spinal deformity, Progressive Infantile Scoliosis.  Like many kids with this, his diagnosis was delayed due to physicians being unaware of the signs. Thankfully, with help from the Infantile Scoliosis Outreach Program we were connected with one of only a handful of US doctors trained to cure my son's condition.  After nearly a year spent in serial body casts, my little boy has a wonderful prognosis: he is CURED and they expect him to stay that way!

During his treatment, we wrote a children's book to help explain to young kids and their families and friends about the treatment. We even got a professional illustrator to donate her time and talents to illustrate this beautiful story!

The story is about a boy who finds a flower growing crooked and tries many silly ways to get it to straighten. In the end, a doctor helps him hold it in place with a straw so that it will grow straight and stay that way. The story is written to be fun for anyone, but also as a helpful metaphor to explain the treatment to any children going through it. Extra information in the back makes this clear to the casual reader, and can raise awareness that the cure is out there.

Our hope is to self-publish this book and make it available to families with children with this condition.  All of the profits from selling the book will go directly to the Infantile Scoliosis Outreach Program (ISOP) to assist in the physician awareness program so more kids are correctly diagnosed under the age of 2, when the treatment is most successful. ISOP also trains physicians to perform the necessary treatment, so families don't have to travel out of state or even across the country to receive care as many currently do. 

If we raise all $6,500 we are going to print an initial run of 1,000 books.  If we make more we will print additional books, allowing us to buy each book for a lower cost and have more money go to training physicians.  If we raise less money, then we will print fewer books. Some money from the initial sales of these books will be set aside to print additional books.