The International Youth Library is the world’s largest library for international children’s and youth literature. Founded in 1949 by Jella Lepman, it has grown to become an internationally recognised centre for literature for young people. It holds a collection of about 675,000 children’s and YA books in more than 250 languages and from six centuries.

The library receives a large number of donation and review copies from publishing houses, institutions, organisations, literary agencies, authors, and illustrators from around the world over the course of every year. It falls to the library’s language and children’s book specialists to set aside new publications that catch their attention and strike them as noteworthy, books that they want to recommend to an international audience in »The White Ravens« list. They are aided in this process by the highly valued suggestions and the support of befriended experts. The books are chosen based on their literary and pictorial qualities, the universal relevance of the topics they address, or their innovative approaches and design.

The catalogue’s aim is to present a wide variety of books in terms of countries, languages, genres, publishing houses, target groups, etc. Therefore, we are always on the lookout for new, noteworthy candidates for the selection. Although not all donations can be included in »The White Ravens« catalogue, we add all high quality books to the International Youth Library’s unique collection of children’s books, and hereby make them available to readers and scholars from all over the world.

We extend our sincere gratitude to the countless publishers who are supporting the International Youth Library through their book donations, and have been doing so for decades, and to everybody else who has contributed to »The White Ravens« lists over the years.

For more information on how to submit books for »The White Ravens« list, please click here.