IBBY-UNESCO Collection of Remarkable Books for Young Readers in Indigenous and Endangered Languages

By International Board on Books for Young People | Posted: Friday Apr 11, 2025

To protect linguistic diversity in the field of children’s literature, IBBY and UNESCO have launched a global call for submissions to put together the IBBY-UNESCO Collection of Remarkable Books in Indigenous and Endangered Languages.

It is known today that, due to a lack of speakers, 40 per cent of the approximately 7,000 languages around the world may disappear by the turn of this 21st century. In view of this threat, which is all the more critical to the 4,000 Indigenous languages in the world today, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed the period between 2022 and 2032 as the International Decade of Indigenous Languages (Resolution A/RES/74/135) to draw global attention on the critical situation of many Indigenous languages and to mobilize stakeholders and resources for their preservation, revitalization and promotion. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) serves as lead UN Agency for the implementation of the International Decade.

The IBBY-UNESCO Collection is a worldwide invitation to publishers, librarians, and institutions—public and private—working for the promotion of books and reading, to discover and share books written for young readers in Indigenous and endangered languages. A call for submissions is open for interested parties to propose titles to inspire future generations of readers and strengthen the status of Indigenous and endangered languages as strategic resources for sustainable development, peacebuilding and reconciliation.

An international committee, composed by IBBY and UNESCO, and influential international experts on children and young adult books who play a positive role in the empowerment of Indigenous identities and languages will select titles to form the Collection, which will be formally presented at the 40th IBBY Congress in Ottawa (6–9 August 2025).

A worldwide call to submit titles is open until 15 December 2025.

Find out more here: ibby.org/awards-activities/activities/ibby-unesco-collection-of-remarkable-books-in-indigenous-and-endangered-languages