SCKIN Resources
Books
Books about sickle cell, chosen by SCKIN for children, young adults, patients, caregivers and clinicians. Filter by who a book is for and what it covers.
35 books
Zach’s Pick
Hope & Destiny
The Adult Patient and Parent's Guide to Sickle Cell Disease and Sickle Cell Trait
Allan F. Platt Jr., James Eckman, Lewis L. Hsu
HPC International · 2023
The standard patient and parent reference, co-authored by SCKIN's Medical Director, Dr. Lewis Hsu. Covers the disease, complications, treatment options and daily management in plain language.
Hope & Destiny Jr.
The Adolescent's Guide to Sickle Cell Disease
Lewis L. Hsu, Carmen C. M. Rodrigues, Silvia R. Brandalise
HPC International · 2023
The teen companion to Hope & Destiny, written for the years when young people start managing their own care. A separate learning guide and workbook is available (9780977316069).
A Kids Book About Sickle Cell Disease
Julia LaMotte, Seethal Jacob
A Kids Co. · 2024
Two clinicians explain sickle cell directly to a child, in the plain, unpatronising voice the series is known for. Good for ages 5 and up, and for siblings and classmates.
Zach’s Pick
My Life Beyond Sickle Cell Disease
A Mayo Clinic Patient Story
Hey Gee, Golden Ella
Mayo Clinic Press Kids · 2023
A graphic novel built from a young patient's own account, with an illustrator working alongside her and a Mayo Clinic physician as medical editor. Ages 12 and up. A French edition exists (Fondation Ipsen BookLab, 2023).
Zach’s Pick
Soar
A Memoir
Gail Campbell Woolley
Agate Bolden · 2017
A journalist's account of living a full professional and personal life with sickle cell, published after her death in 2015. Foreword by Nick Chiles. Frequently assigned in clinical training for exactly this reason.
Understanding Sickle Cell Disease
Miriam Bloom
University Press of Mississippi · 1995
A university-press primer on the biology and clinical course of the disease. Older than the current treatment landscape, but still one of the clearest explanations of the underlying science for a lay reader.
The Ultimate Sickle Cell Activity Book
An Educational Resource for Preteens and Teens
Elle Cole
Cleverly Changing Press · 2021
Activities and exercises aimed at the transition years, when responsibility for care starts shifting from parent to young person.
ABCs of Sickle Cell Disease
Elle Cole
Cleverly Changing Press · 2021
An alphabet book that teaches sickle cell vocabulary to young children, illustrated by Kate Hamernik.
A Sickle Cell Coloring Book For Kids
A Creative A to Z Guide on Growing Up with Sickle Cell Disease
Elle Cole
Cleverly Changing Press · 2020
Over 26 coloring pages pairing each letter with something a child with sickle cell will recognise. Ages 5 to 8. A Spanish edition exists (9781735049823).
Sickle Cell Superstars: Jamal and Imani
A Guide for Kids
Gunner Doyle
Independently published
Two child characters carry an explanation of what sickle cell is and what living with it looks like day to day.
My Brother Has Sickle Cell
Erica D. Gamble, Dwayne C. Robinson
AuthorHouse · 2014
Written from a sibling's point of view — the perspective most sickle cell books for children leave out, and the one siblings themselves most need.
A Sick Life
TLC 'n Me — Stories from On and Off the Stage
Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins
Rodale · 2017
The TLC singer on building a career while managing sickle cell. The most widely read sickle cell memoir there is, and a useful entry point for readers who would not pick up a medical book.
Zach’s Pick
Clemmie
Walter Clement Noel and the Discovery of Sickle Cell Disease
Chanel Arrington
InspiHeard Now, LLC · 2021
Recovers the life of Walter Clement Noel, the Grenadian dental student whose case, reported by James Herrick in 1910, was the first description of sickle cell in Western medical literature — the patient behind the paper.
A Doctor In A Patient's Body
Dreaming Big With Sickle Cell Disease And Chronic Pain
Simone C. Eastman Uwan, MD
Independently published · 2018
A physician who is also a sickle cell patient writes from both sides of the consulting room, including on chronic pain and how it is treated.
My Life as a Sickle Cell Warrior
Important Secrets You Were Never Told
Patricia Maley
PageTurner Press and Media · 2022
A first-person account of long-term life with the disease, written for other patients.
I Only Cry At Night
Living with Sickle Cell Disease
P. Allen Jones
CreateSpace · 2011
A personal narrative of pain, endurance and the private side of the disease that patients rarely describe out loud.
Living With Sickle Cell Disease
The Struggle to Survive
Judy Gray Johnson, Leroy Williams Jr.
CreateSpace · 2012
Two voices on surviving the disease over a lifetime.
Resilience
Coping with Sickle Cell Disease
Judy Gray Johnson
CreateSpace · 2014
A coping-focused personal account. The Kindle edition carries a longer title ending "...Against All Odds".
How My Daughter Is a Survivor of Sickle Cell Disease
Adrienne F. Easter
AuthorHouse · 2010
A mother's account of raising a child with sickle cell, written for other parents at the start of that road.
Sickle
A Personal Story of Pain, Purpose, and Perseverance
Dominique Friend
Self-published · 2008
An autobiography of living with the disease. A second edition was issued in 2014 by Tate Publishing, now defunct.
Everyday with Sickle Cell
Major Tips for Caregiver
Funmi Eko Ezeh
Independently published · 2025
Practical day-to-day guidance from a caregiver, aimed squarely at other caregivers rather than at clinicians.
Six pieds dans l'os
Roman
Eugène Pierre Lamah
L'Harmattan Sénégal · 2026
A novel following a Guinean boy nicknamed "Spaghetti" from childhood through seminary, university in Conakry and exile in France, with sickle cell as his constant companion. Preface by Carlosse Keumeugni. The author's first novel.
Zach’s Pick
Sickle Cell Disease
Mark T. Gladwin, Gregory J. Kato, Enrico M. Novelli (eds.)
McGraw Hill · 2021
The major contemporary clinical reference, 720 pages across pathophysiology, organ complications and management.
Sickle Cell Disease in Clinical Practice
Jo Howard, Paul Telfer
Springer London · 2015
A practical clinical handbook from two UK haematologists — shorter and more bedside-oriented than the large reference volumes.
Zach’s Pick
Sickle Cell Disease in Sub-Saharan Africa
Biomedical Perspectives
Baba Inusa, Kanayo Nwankwo, Nkechikwu Valerie Azinge-Egbiri, Bukola Bolarinwa (eds.)
Routledge · 2024
The clinical and research picture in the region carrying roughly 80% of the global burden — the context most Western textbooks leave out. A companion volume covers public health perspectives.
Sickle Cell Disease and Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation
Emily Riehm Meier, Allistair Abraham, Ross M. Fasano (eds.)
Springer · 2018
The reference volume on transplant as a curative approach — donor selection, conditioning, outcomes and late effects.
Sickle Cell Disease
Osaro Erhabor (ed.)
IntechOpen · 2022
An open-access edited volume, free to read in full — useful where textbook budgets are the constraint.
Sickle Cell Disease
Graham R. Serjeant, Beryl E. Serjeant
Oxford University Press · 2001
The classic text, built on decades of cohort work in Jamaica. Predates hydroxyurea's widespread use and the curative therapies, but remains unmatched on natural history.
Sickle Cell and the Social Sciences
Health, Racism and Disablement
Simon Dyson
Routledge · 2019
Treats sickle cell as a social phenomenon as much as a clinical one — racism, disability and the structures that shape care.
Zach’s Pick
Dying in the City of the Blues
Sickle Cell Anemia and the Politics of Race and Health
Keith Wailoo
University of North Carolina Press · 2001
The standard history of how sickle cell became a political and racial question in America, told through Memphis. The single best starting point for understanding why the disease has been treated as it has.
The Troubled Dream of Genetic Medicine
Ethnicity and Innovation in Tay-Sachs, Cystic Fibrosis, and Sickle Cell Disease
Keith Wailoo, Stephen Pemberton
Johns Hopkins University Press · 2006
Three genetic diseases, three communities, and why the promise of genetic medicine arrived so unevenly across them.
In the Blood
Sickle Cell Anemia and the Politics of Race
Melbourne Tapper
University of Pennsylvania Press · 1999
How colonial and post-colonial medicine used sickle cell to construct racial categories, across Africa and the Americas.
Drawing Blood
Technology and Disease Identity in Twentieth-Century America
Keith Wailoo
Johns Hopkins University Press · 1997
How blood technologies shaped which diseases got named, studied and funded. Contains the key account of Herrick's 1910 case report.
Blood Picture
L. W. Diggs, Sickle Cell Anemia, and the South's First Blood Bank
Richard H. Nollan
University of Tennessee Press · 2016
A biography of the physician who founded the first sickle cell center in the United States. Winner of the Medical Library Association's Gottlieb Prize.
Evidence-Based Management of Sickle Cell Disease
Expert Panel Report, 2014
NHLBI Expert Panel
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NIH) · 2014
The NHLBI expert panel's evidence-based recommendations for managing sickle cell disease, free to download.