Very heartening to hear that a series of medical comic books for kids, launched in the UK last month, would soon make a debut in India.
The idea behind the project is brilliant — telling stories to explain swine flu, asthma, cardiac arrest and hundreds of such medical conditions in the language of a ten year old. UK-based Medikidz comics will come to India with their glossy tales of the adventures of five superheroes in a make-believe land. The books are written and reviewed by doctors and will help parents, teachers and children basics of difficult to understand medical concepts.
I remember UNICEF’s girl child Meena, parrot in tow, in comic books and animated films taking on tough issues such as HIV/AIDS in the south Asian region. Meena was a greatly inspiring example of communicating health and education even at the village level. Some time back I was thoroughly impressed with the work of Jean Pierre Petit, who uses comics in France (and now the rest of the world) to tell science stories.
Also India’s Centre for Science and Environment’s commendable publication ‘Gobar Times’ (Gobar is cow dung in Hindi) dejargonising environment issues for children.
I’m sure there are hundreds of lesser known publications that we must know about. I would love to hear of such regional and national publications that are successfully doing this relatively difficult job of taking science to children. Writing simply and effectively is the most challenging way of communicating and my respect goes to such publications who do this tirelessly, sometimes as an act bordering on philanthropy.
