Support Project World Kid Lit

Project World Kid Lit is a global, groundroots community focused on raising awareness of world literature for young people.

What does world literature mean to you? We interpret the concept of #WorldKidLit broadly, to encompass children’s and young adult books, stories, authors and illustrators, from other countries, set in other countries, and books translated into English from other languages.

Our core aims are to encourage more diversity in English-language publishing and in educational curricula, to give a richer and more inclusive representation of the multicultural and multilingual world we live in, and to highlight great literature from around the world. We aim to make it easier to find children’s and YA books in translation into English.

Whether it’s online, on social media, or in real life, there are countless ways you can get involved with Project World Kid Lit, or to spread the word about #WorldKidLitMonth…

Social media: join the conversation

Use the hashtags #WorldKidLit and #WorldKidLitMonth on social media!

If you’ve enjoyed a book that was translated from another language, or a story from beyond your country’s borders, please share a picture or a few words with the hashtags. If it was translated, please #namethetranslator and the language it was translated from!

For news of the latest children’s and YA books in English translation from around the world, and related events, subscribe to World Kid Lit Blog and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, our Facebook page, or the World Kid Lit Facebook discussion group.

You can also tag us @worldkidlit with questions or news about international children’s literature, and we’ll be happy to retweet, and suggest books or resources, if we can.

Support Project World Kid Lit

We’ve existed for 6 years without any funding, but have now started fundraising for a new website so we can take #WorldKidLit and #WorldKidLitMonth to the next level. If you can, please make a small donation via our Ko-fi account. Thank you!

Project World Kid Lit is a community of volunteers. We run World Kid Lit blog, social media accounts on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, all with the aim of promoting #WorldKidLitMonth every September, and encouraging a discussion of global kid lit year-round with the hashtag #WorldKidLit.

Champion #WorldKidLitMonth in your community

Please help spread the word about World Kid Lit Month which happens every year in September. Tell your local school, library and bookshop about it.

If you can recommend books from another part of the world, why not offer to go in and talk about them, or give a reading?

Please share the What is World Kid Lit Month? page of our website, where you will find a wealth of resources to help make a #WorldKidLitMonth display, or celebrate the month in other ways.

Write for World Kid Lit blog: book reviews and features

Here on the blog, we welcome readers’ reviews of children’s/YA books in translation or originally published in another country besides your own.

No one is too young or too old to enjoy children’s books from other countries, and no reviewer is too young or old for our blog! See here for our growing section of Reviews by Younger Readers.

We also welcome guest contributors to submit ideas for interviews and features via our our email address worldkidlitblog@gmail.com. Book reviews can be submitted using this template. You could even become a regular correspondent on the children’s literature of the part of the world you know and love.

If you’re a translator, see our Resources for Translators page for guidelines on writing a #SeekingAPublisher post about a book that isn’t translated yet but you think should be!

What do we mean by #WorldKidLit? There are so many ways to define global/international/world/border-crossing literature, for young people! It could be books…

  • translated into English from another language
  • first published in a different country from the reader
  • by authors/illustrators from another country
  • works by immigrant or refugee authors/illustrators
  • first published in English in another country
  • written in English and published in a country that isn’t majority English-speaking
  • #ownvoices stories set in another country or culture
  • bilingual/dual heritage stories, and books exploring bicultural experiences and heritages

What does world literature for young people mean to you?

Help us develop our resources

We aim for this site to be first port-of-call to help English readers find books from around the world, and translated into English from other languages. We link as much as we can to other organizations championing children’s literature from other parts of the world. Please tell us about initiatives and institutions to include.

And we produce our own downloadable reading guides. Please get in touch if you can help us to improve or expand any of the following resources:

Project World Kid Lit: help behind the scenes

If are willing to help out in other ways, we have plenty of opportunities to support our community project. We are currently an informal community of volunteers, located across several continents, who care about spreading the word about world kid lit.

We’re aiming to create an organization. And that takes many different skill-sets, from design and graphics, to tech support at events, to fundraising, to serving as treasurer on our management commitee. We operate via three virtual teams:

  • Social media and comms: the website and blog, and our various social media accounts
  • Outreach: promoting World Kid Lit Month, and contributing to events and resources in partnership with other organizations
  • Management committee: setting World Kid Lit up as a non-profit organization, fundraising, and managing funds – new in 2023

Please take a look at our volunteer sign-up sheet to express an interest in joining one of our virtual teams (no commitment!) , and we’ll send you more information!