Bookshop crowdfunder raises £4,000 to give 1,000 schoolchildren Greta Thunberg's book

A Big Green Bookshop campaign has raised more than £3,000 to get a copy of climate activist Greta Thunberg's book into the hands of 1,000 schoolchildren.

The online bookshop, run by Simon Key, joined forces with novelist Melissa Harrison to launch a Crowdfunder to supply 100 schools across the UK with 10 copies each of No One Is Too Small to Make A Difference (Penguin), which retails at £2.99. 

In just two days, the Crowdfunder has smashed its £3,000 target and raised £4,018. Key now hopes to raise £10,000. 

Key, who runs the #buyastrangerabook iniative on Twitter, said the idea came after Harrison said she wanted to buy 10 copies of Thunberg's book and then

: "Just seen a very little girl go to the counter of a bookshop all by herself and ask for the Greta Thunberg book and they had it and she was allowed to buy it. And this is a wonderful and hopeful small thing." 

"Melissa said she wanted to buy 10 copies and then other people joined in and it all went from there. It's been going really well and the book has really captured people," said Key. "The whole premise of the book is you are never too young or small to make a difference, and that's not just about climate change, and it's really aimed at children." 

Penguin announced plans to publish the 16-year-old's collected speeches in May, as well as a family memoir. No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference is a selection of 11 of the Swedish schoolgirl’s key speeches, made between September last year to April 2019. 

Before publishing director Helen Conford left Penguin Press for Profile Books, she acquired UK and Commonwealth rights to family memoir Our House is On Fire: Scenes from a Family and a Planet in Crisis from Sigrid Stavnem at Politikens. Commissioning editor Chloe Currens subsequently decided to publish the speeches as a separate volume, with the memoir to follow later in 2019.

Around 1.4 million people in over 100 countries took part in the school climate strikes, organised by Thunberg, in March, and the ‘Fridays For Future’ action continues weekly in countries around the world. A Nobel Prize nominee, she was also chosen as TIME’s '25 Most Influential Teenagers in the World' and has won the prestigious Prix Liberté. Coverage of her speeches extends across national and international print and broadcast media.

If you would like your school to be considered to receive copies of No One Is Too Small to Make A Difference, email gretaforschools@gmail.com with the name of the school, its address and a contact name.