First SDG Book Club Selection Available

The first selection from the SDG Book Club, in all official UN languages, is now online. This offers an excellent starting point to get discussions going around SDG 1 – No Poverty.

Libraries are excellent places to engage people with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), even from a young age. Indeed, it is important that the leaders of the future grow up with an awareness of the issues facing our world, and the motivation to tackle them.

This is the mission of the SDG Book Club, launched by the United Nations, in partnership with IFLA, the International Publishers Association, the European and International Booksellers Federation, the International Board on Books for Youth and the Bologna Children’s Book Fair.

The Book Club provides a short list of books in each of the UN’s official languages as a starting point for getting children aged 6-12 to think about the themes included in the SDGs.

The first selection focuses on SDG 1 – No Poverty.

IFLA President Glòria Pérez-Salmerón said:

Books have been at the heart of so many major developments, and I believe they can be at the heart of the fundamental change necessary to achieve the SDGs. The SDG Book Club is not only an opportunity to celebrate great and inspiring stories, but also to reflect on the importance of books – and the access to them that libraries provide – in making progress for all mankind.

Getting Involved

This is just the first selection – each SDG will be covered in turn, one a month.

We encourage libraries to get involved by organising their own book clubs, making displays or in other ways. The books in the selection are only an indication, and libraries (and their users!) should feel free to use the books they want in order to tackle the issues.

More information and materials are available on the SDG Book Club website.