Stories & Rights

What a joy to see the outstanding books on these shortlists, all chosen by expert youth librarians. Proving our theory that all good books engage with human rights, we’ve found deep themes of justice, truth and freedom to explore in...

Written by Sam Nadel, Publishing Team volunteer. Finding the perfect Christmas book for children and young people can be a daunting task. But as well as making great gifts, children’s books can inspire empathy and communicate the value...

At Amnesty we know that human rights are crucial to a well-functioning society. In our view, all of us should understand, uphold and celebrate them, no matter how old or young we are. Children should be taught about them as early as...

Fancy spending your summer with a smelly dog? Or maybe you’d rather spend it exploring ancient city woodlands? Or maybe even embarking on a daring adventure to post-Civil War America? For whatever it is that piques your child’s...

As the world’s largest human rights organisation, Amnesty deals with issues of epic proportions as well as individual cases. We also set great store by the power of children’s fiction. This sometimes surprises people. But children have...

We have chosen a selection of books for young adults that we feel strongly convey the message of human rights. Each book encourages the reader to step into the shoes of another person and experience life through their eyes; to develop...

During the our Guardian Teen Takeover Week authors Alan Gibbons, Sita Brahmachari, Deborah Ellis and Bali Rai recommended some of their favourite books for young adults to us. All these books deal with issues of identity from gender...

The human rights concerns I explore in ‘ Red Leaves ’ are ones that have always troubled me, but it seemed that NOW more than ever it was the time to tell a story for young people about the universal human right to have a home; a safe...

Once told to 'go back to where she came from' (she was born in Clapham), children's laureate Malorie Blackman is now famous for her books on race and identity. Here Malorie reveals the books that shaped her and why YA fiction has a lot...

From the moment we are born, we each have the human right to an identity. It's Article 8 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, but it lasts for life. As an enabler for our other rights to function, it's the bedrock of a healthy...

In Syria Speaks: Art and Culture from the Frontline , the critic and academic miriam cooke (sic) puts the country’s long history of detaining political dissidents into stark perspective. She tells Daniel Gorman: ‘It became clear to me...

Poems that Make Grown Men Cry, edited by Anthony and Ben Holden, was published in April this year in partnership with Amnesty. It’s a deeply moving book and makes a lovely gift, not just for poetry lovers but those seeking glimpses...

Today we're part of the launch of a new poetry anthology, in whose publication Amnesty has been closely involved. The title - Poems that make grown men cry - sums it up, really. A hundred men, all very successful in their fields, have...

One of my daughters was lucky enough to have primary teachers who didn’t worry when the headcount in any lesson was down by one. They’d simply go and look for her in the tiny library, where she’d have crept away to read. They’d find...

Anthony Holden is a writer, broadcaster and critic, and was the US Editor for the Observer and Assistant Editor for The TImes. He's written many biographies including one on Tchaikovsky, and watched the Sochi 2014 opening ceremony to...

Guest blog from Michael Morpurgo Amnesty at 50 For fifty years now, all my adult life, Amnesty has been there keeping watch over the injustices and wrongs and cruelties we inflict on one another, reminding us urgently that in this oh...

‘This event gives me the opportunity to pay tribute to these wonderful medical students, doctors and nurses who went into Belsen at liberation and did an absolutely magnificent job. They gave of themselves, they worked with dedication...

Illustrating our human rights with cartoons, some of them very funny indeed, might seem a frivolous response to the abuses going on in the world today. But not according to Syria’s foremost political cartoonist Ali Ferzat, whose eye...