You can Change the World! is an award-winning book, written to inspire today’s teenagers. In a world is so often obsessed with celebrities, shopping and self-promotion, this book of interviews proves the true power and potential of today’s teens.
Author Margaret Rooke asks more than fifty teenagers from across the globe to share their experiences of being volunteers, fundraisers and campaigners, online and beyond. These inspirational teens include Amika George, who helped persuade the government to change the law on ‘period poverty’ in schools, and Lucy Gavaghan, who at 14 successfully led the campaign to persuade Tesco and other supermarkets to stop stocking eggs from caged birds.
The teens explain how they raise awareness of the issues they care about and how they’ve improved their own lives and the lives of others. They talk about upcycling clothes for the homeless, dealing with bullying at school, preserving Britain’s beaches, running a football team for children with disabilities, and supporting Fairtrade.
Zainab thought she’d always be the class clown but now channels her energy into helping rebellious kids as a youth worker at her old school, while Amarni stepped away from the fringes of gang violence and now inspires a group of other teens to focus on their love of music.
Everyone knows that teens are strongly influenced by their friends, and this is often presumed to be a bad thing. The truth is it can be a good thing too. The influence can be positive, with friends encouraging each other to behave with compassion and generosity. That’s where this book comes in: it showcases fantastic teenage role models for them to follow.
In a recent poll, the Royal Society of the Arts found that, when asked to pick words from a list to describe teenagers, adults most commonly chose ‘selfish’, ‘lazy’ and ‘antisocial’, reinforcing young people’s negative self-image. However, the RSA also found that 84% of young people want to help others and 68% have done so through social action and volunteering.*
Sian Griffiths, Education and Families Editor of the Sunday Times says about the book: “I am fed up with hearing about Generation Snowflake. Here at last is a book that disproves that label. I loved reading these stories of 50 teenagers who have literally changed the world for the better through their efforts. Hurrah for the next generation – Generation Sunshine!”
You Can Change the World! was awarded a gold medal in the USA’s Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards for multicultural nonfiction.
Margaret Rooke is an author and writer. This book follows the huge success of Dyslexia is my Superpower (Most of the Time), interviews with children and teens with dyslexia written to inspire others. Margaret’s first book was Creative, Successful, Dyslexic, a book of interviews with well-known people with dyslexia, from Dame Darcey Bussell, to Sir Richard Branson, Zoe Wanamaker CBE, Marcus Brigstocke, Benjamin Zephaniah, and many more, revealing how dyslexia both hindered and helped them on their life’s journey.
