Abdeltawab Youssef

Legacy

Abdeltawab Youssef’s work is still read and studied: in universities, in research on sustainable development, and soon in a digital library of his books.

His books and the Sustainable Development Goals

Long before the United Nations set out its 17 Sustainable Development Goals, Abdeltawab Youssef was writing about them for children: clean water, equality between girls and boys, a healthy planet, justice, and above all quality education. Researchers at Cairo University found that his stories touch every one of the seventeen goals, and that quality education was “his most serious concern”.

Tap any goal to see examples from his books. The goals were matched to his books by a research team at Cairo University.

At Cairo University

His works were the case study of a Cairo University research project, The Digital Library of Arab Children’s Culture for Sustainable Development (2019 – 2025). The project catalogued his books in Arabic and English using the international Dublin Core standard, mapped them to the Sustainable Development Goals, prepared bilingual pages for 92 works, and produced an illustrated digital edition of Ibn al-Haytham Meets Isaac Newton.

His library

Over his lifetime he gathered an enormous library of children’s books from around the world; visitors called it the largest children’s library in any home. After his death it was moved to a space of its own, where his family and a team of young researchers have been sorting and cataloguing it.

From his library

The digital library

We are preparing a bilingual digital library of Abdeltawab Youssef’s books for children. Each title will have an Arabic and English description, its age group and illustrator, and the Sustainable Development Goals it speaks to. It builds on the cataloguing work begun at Cairo University, and will open a few books at a time, starting with the Unique Encounter stories.

Coming soon

In the meantime, browse the catalogue of his books