In Beirut. Image – Getty: EyeEm Mobile
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
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BBY: ‘Every Child in the World Deserves To Be Protected’
‘We stand with and for children’
A “heavy news cycle” can mean many things, but in the current plethora of internationally raging issues, actions, and reactions, it can easily mean that for news consumers, stories even of the most horrific suffering fade quickly into the background of other reports.
At CBS News today (September 25), Tucker Reals and Chris Livesay have reported that Lebanese officials now put the death toll in the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict at more than 600. “The United States has urged Israel to focus on diplomacy rather than escalating its fight with Hezbollah,” Reals and Livesay write, “with concern growing that a full-scale war between the longtime foes could mushroom into a wider conflict that puts American forces in the Middle East at greater risk and destabilizes the volatile region.”
This evening, Claire Parker, Kior Soroka, and Suzan Haidamous in Cairo write for the Washington Post that the Israel Defense Forces are “mobilizing two reserve brigades for operations in the north,” as Tel Aviv calls up more reservists.
At the United Nations, now in its highest-level annual General Assembly sessions, Emmanuel Macron of France has used his time at the lectern to focus not only on Ukraine but also to call for the Security Council “to limit veto power in certain cases,” according to reports quickly issued by France24 with Agence-France Presse and Reuters.
And Omar Abdel-Baqui and Stephen Kalin at the Wall Street Journal may have the most ominous lead of all: “Israel’s military chief told troops that airstrikes against Hezbollah were in preparation for a potential ground invasion of Lebanon, after Israeli air defenses intercepted the militant group’s first attempted missile strike on Tel Aviv.”
IBBY: ‘The Future of the World’
Six months into this year, as you may recall, the International Board on Books for Young People, known as IBBY. issued a statement on The Ongoing Violations of Children’s Rights in Gaza.
And today, IBBY’s leadership was back, this time with its executive committee communicating what they’re hearing from their Beirut chapter.
Shereen Kreidieh
“Shereen Kreidieh reports,” the executive committee tells news media, that “children and women are among the killed, with thousands—often entire families— crowding into
The organization, according to this leadership statement, “is deeply distressed at the escalation of violence in the Middle East, and the threat of it spreading wider.
“As in all wars and armed conflicts, children suffer the most. Thousands of them are killed or maimed. And those who remain lose not only their families, friends, homes, schools, and libraries, but often hope as well.”
The statement on the Israeli-Lebanese crisis was, like the one on in June, clearly a humanitarian appeal, hardly a performative comment.
“The future of the world is closely knitted to the mental well-being of those who will inherit it,” IBBY tells reporters.
“How much longer will children be traumatized and punished? And what will their behavior be when they take charge?
“At IBBY, we stand with and for children. With 85 sections worldwide, and our mission to bring books and children together, we raise our strong voice for an immediate de-escalation, and talks for peace.
“As EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell stated on September 23: ‘Everybody has to put all their capacity to stop this.'”
More from Publishing Perspectives on children’s literature is here, more on IBBY is here, and more on publishing and political dynamics is here.