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Our Rights!: Stories and Poems About Children’s Rights

Book Synopsis

Stories and poems from a galaxy of authors and poets, highlighting a range of children’s rights from the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, including:

The right to life, survival and development
The right to protection from violence, abuse and neglect
The right to education, to reach full potential
The right to be raised by or have a relationship with parents
The right to express opinions and be listened to
Jake Hope, a leading authority on contemporary children’s literature, has chosen stories from Cathy Cassidy, Maisie Chan, Joseph Coelho, AM Dassu, Anne Fine, Paul Jennings, Chitra Soundar and Elizabeth Laird; and poems from Valerie Bloom, Sita Brahmachari, Dom Conlon, Nicola Davies, Jamila Gavin, Maurice Gleitzman, CG Moore, Jackie Morris, Beverley Naidoo, RR O’Neill, Rashmi Sirdeshpande, Jordan Stephens and Benjamin Zephaniah.

The illustrators are Ruthine Burton, Chih-An Chen and Habiba Nabisubi, who have just graduated from the Pop-Up Pathways project, a national initiative sponsored by the Arts Council, that develops emerging illustrators from under-represented groups.

Our Review Panel says...

Our Rights is a collection of stories and poems about children’s rights in accessible short stories and poetry by twenty-three, many very well known, writers. Each short story or poem is preceded by one of the Children’s Rights from the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, giving a sneak precious of what themes will be explored. The illustrations throughout the book are in a variety of styles and compliment each section beautifully.

This book is excellent to dip in-and-out-of and each section leads to discussion and deeper thinking about children’s rights; this is a must-have for all Year 5 and Year 6 classrooms. The themes can be sensitive and some are more suitable for UKS2, although many parts of the book would be suitable for younger readers too. At the end of the book, are the Children’s Rights listed before giving the read information about Amnesty International. The texts are easy to read and immerses the reader straight in- I read this in two sittings!