Riya’s New Book Is Out! - Leela’s Braids

Hi everyone, it's Riya! As you may know, I am pursuing a career in medicine with the goal of becoming a surgeon. For very long I have been searching for ways to integrate my love and passion for art with my commitment to medicine. In May 2023, I was asked to be the Creative Design Director for a UCLA-based non-profit organization called Pages for Pediatrics and help establish its first chapter at U of M. Pages for Pediatrics aims to write and illustrate children's storybooks aimed to normalize patient adversity, advocate for disability representation, and combat stigma towards pediatric conditions in the broader community. To help alleviate patient anxiety, we center children’s storybooks around characters that pediatric patients can relate to as a means of instilling hope, comfort, and solidarity. In order to ensure that every patient has unhindered access to our therapeutic stories, we raise funds to cover the production and distribution of our books so we can donate copies to pediatric patients at C.S. Mott’s Children’s Hospital and others nationwide. This is a dream opportunity for me and something that I am so proud to be a part of.

I am very excited to announce that our first book, Leela’s Braids, is set to be published in mid-April!! I helped to write this book centered on Alopecia areata and fully illustrated it myself! This has been an incredible project for me and one that I am very proud to share with you all.

If you are interested in purchasing a copy of Leela’s Braids and supporting Pages for Pediatrics, please feel free to fill out the following order form by March 31st: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdZo0A0l_c0ry2wKDTSYjxJUDb7q4jkYyayQv0qN1beCYPdng/viewform

This would make for a wonderful gift for any little ones and family that you all may have. Thank you so much!

You can find more of my artwork on my website (https://theindianartist.weebly.com/portfolio.html) or on my Instagram @riya_agg.art