In a press release today the International Publishers Association announced its collaboration with the UN’s Sustainable Development Group to create a Book Club for children’s titles that will promote the Sustainable Development Group’s goals (SDGs).
The Book Club initiative will put the spotlight on books as a tool to encourage children and young people to interact with the principles of the SDGs through a curated reading list of key children’s books related to each of the 17 SDGs. This list will include titles for each SDG in all six official UN languages to start.
The official languages being Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish.
This image shows the goals, and very noble they are too.
Maher Nasser, Director of the Outreach Division in the UN’s Department of Public Information, said,
We hope that this collaboration with publishers around the world will help youth internalise what the Goals are about and why do they matter to their own future and that of our planet.
However, as yet the titles have not been chosen, and there is certainly no agreement as to how these books will be produced and distributed to the target audience.
Both elements present considerable challenges if the IPA and UN are to observe all the Sustainable Development Goals while simultaneously promoting them.
That will be a juggling act worth seeing.
Read the full IPA press release here.
