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Collected speeches of school striker Greta Thunberg to be released as book

Penguin clinches rights to Thunberg’s speeches for a last-minute collection coming out June 6

Voice of a climate change generation, 16-year-old environmental campaigner and school striker Greta Thunberg, will have her collected speeches published in June in a book deal struck with Penguin.

No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference will be published on June 6 and go on sale for £2.99, and will feature eleven of Greta Thunberg’s key speeches made between September 2018 and April 2019.

The first was given three weeks after her first climate strike in August 2018, the most recent in the UK Parliament on 23 April. Delivered to world leaders and street activists, at TED and the UN climate talks in Poland, at Davos and European Parliaments, her message becomes ever more emboldened as her impact grows, said Penguin.

“We children are not sacrificing our education and our childhood for you to tell us what you consider is politically possible in the society that you have created,” Thunberg told Parliament in April. “We children are doing this to wake the adults up. We children are doing this for you to put your differences aside and start acting as you would in a crisis. We children are doing this because we want our hopes and dreams back.”

Thunberg’s ‘school strike for climate’ captured the imagination of millions of children around the world who now regularly walk out of schools on Fridays to raise their concerns about climate change and the inaction of people in power to tackle what they believe will be the defining crisis of the century.

“Greta has already galvanised millions of children and adults around the world, and she’s only just getting started,” said Chloe Currens, commissioning editor at Penguin Press. “She calls for change at the highest level—and because her message is so urgent, and so essential, we are working to make it available to as many readers as we can, as quickly as we possibly can. This little book will document an extraordinary, unprecedented moment in our history, and invite you to join in the fight for climate justice: to wake up, spread the word, and make a difference.”

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The Big Issue’s climate activist takeover

Of course, Thunberg is just one of many young voices triggering urgent debate on tackling irreversible climate change.

In April, The Big Issue’s youth climate action takeover gave a whole host of young activists a platform to share their views and knowledge on climate change. We heard from 15-year-old Dara McAnulty, whose autism has helped him campaign for wildlife. We gave a platform to 16-year-old George Bond, who took on Westminster’s environment secretary Michael Gove. We also amplified the voice of 15-year-old naturalist and wildlife blogger Alex White, who believes climate striking is the only way he can get his voice heard.

Image: Anders Hellberg

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