An independent children's publisher

Books and classroom materials that teach the Sustainable Development Goals to children aged 4 to 8.

We publish in English and Spanish, test every title with classroom teachers in several countries, and match our lessons to the international days schools already celebrate.

See the books Classroom packs for teachers

Cover of Small Hands, Big World: children holding hands around a smiling globe

Cover of the Spanish edition, Manos pequeñas, mundo grande

17goals, each with a coloring scene and a read-aloud "Learn more" page

34country scenes, so children see each goal in two places

2languages, with the Spanish text reviewed by teachers in Mexico, Colombia and Argentina

18printable classroom units, one per goal plus a full-year bundle

Why we publish

The world needs 44 million more teachers by 2030. We think good materials, and AI used carefully, can stretch the reach of the teachers we have.

Read our view on SDG 4

Who is behind it

Ben Sandzer-Bell spent three decades on aviation fuel savings, carbon markets, bamboo reforestation and schools. Peta Kaplan is an early childhood educator and school psychologist by training, and a painter.

About us

The goals, for one person

The SDGs are usually applied to countries and cities. We think anyone can map their own impact against them and plan the next step.

Find your SDG

Books

Our titles

Paperbacks printed on demand and sold through Amazon. Each book is tagged with the goals it teaches.

Available nowEnglish edition

Small Hands, Big World

Small Hands, Big Impact. 17 ways I can help, with Lia and Teo.

Lia and Teo travel to 34 countries, two for each goal. On every page children color a scene of kids their own age doing one small, real thing that helps, then tick an "I can" box. After each goal, a "Learn more" page gives the grown-up reading aloud the problem in plain numbers, who is helping, a spotlight on the two countries, questions to talk about and new words. The book ends with a World Helper certificate.

Ages: 4 to 8 (preschool to grade 2)
Format: Paperback, 8.5 × 11 in
ISBN: 979-8-9824747-0-4
Price: US$18.99
Author: Ben Sandzer-Bell

Buy on Amazon

Publishing December 2026Edición en español

Manos pequeñas, mundo grande

The Spanish edition of Small Hands, Big World, for classrooms across Latin America.

The same 17 goals and 34 country scenes, written for Spanish-speaking children. Social studies teachers in Mexico, Colombia and Argentina are reviewing the text so that it reads naturally across the region, not in one country's Spanish only.

Edades: 4 a 8 años
Format: Paperback, 8.5 × 11 in
ISBN: 979-8-9824747-1-1
Author: Ben Sandzer-Bell

On Amazon in December 2026

Available nowAnimal welfare

Street Dog Stories to Color

Learn to Read a Dog with the Street Dogs of Nicaragua

Each coloring page is drawn from one of Peta Kaplan's large oil paintings of the street dogs she photographed and sketched in Granada and painted in her Chicago studio. The pages teach eight body-language clues, so children learn to read a dog before they approach it. A two-page guide for grown-ups explains each clue, and the original paintings appear at the back. Animal welfare is not a goal of its own in the SDGs; we place it under Life on Land, with Good Health for the safety lessons and Quality Education for empathy.

Ages: 4 to 8
Format: Paperback, 8.5 × 11 in, 30 pages
Price: US$12.99
ASIN: B0HP44N5PN
Author: Peta Kaplan, painter

Buy on Amazon

Available nowEdición en español · Animal welfare

Historias de perros callejeros para colorear

Aprende a leer a un perro con los perros callejeros de Nicaragua

The Spanish edition of Street Dog Stories to Color. The same 25 real dogs from Peta Kaplan's paintings, each telling its own short story in Spanish and teaching one clue for reading how a dog feels, with the grown-ups' guide and all 25 original paintings at the back. Made for Spanish-speaking families and bilingual classrooms.

Edades: 4 a 8 años
Format: Paperback, 8.5 × 11 in, 30 pages
Price: US$12.99
ISBN: 979-8-14-040656-1
Author: Peta Kaplan, pintora

Comprar en Amazon

Inside Small Hands, Big World

Meet Lia and Teo page — Meet Lia and Teo

Nicaragua coloring page for Goal 1 — Goal 1 in Nicaragua

Learn more page for Goal 1, No Poverty — A "Learn more" page for grown-ups

Mexico coloring page for Goal 11 — Goal 11 in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico

For teachers

A school year of international days, one goal at a time

Eighteen printable units. Each of the 17 goals is matched to the UN international day that fits it best, so a lesson is ready when the day comes round. The eighteenth unit is all 17 together.

Buy once and print as many copies as your own class needs. Ages 4 to 8, preschool to grade 2.

Shop the classroom packsUS$3 per goal · US$29 for all 17

The 17 classroom pack covers arranged together

What is in each 9-page unit

A cover naming the international day
A one-page lesson plan
Two coloring scenes from two countries
A "Learn more" read-aloud page
A map worksheet for the two countries
"I can" action cards, one per child
A themed certificate, such as Water Hero

The 18 units

Goal		Goal name	International day	Date	Price

A free five-page sample is available on request. Packs are inspired by the UN Sustainable Development Goals and are not affiliated with or endorsed by the United Nations.

SDG 4 · Quality Education

The world cannot train teachers fast enough. It can extend the ones it has.

Goal 4 promises every child a good education by 2030. The people who deliver it are running out.

44 millionadditional primary and secondary teachers the world needs by 2030, by UNESCO's estimate

15 millionof them in sub-Saharan Africa alone, the largest regional gap

4.6% → 9.1%primary teacher attrition worldwide, 2015 to 2022: the profession is losing people almost twice as fast

Source: UNESCO, Global Report on Teachers (2024), as reported by UN News, February 2024.

Teacher training takes years, and the colleges that do it sit in cities. The children furthest behind live in villages, islands and mountain districts where a qualified teacher may not arrive at all, or stays a year and leaves. Building more colleges matters, but on present numbers the system cannot produce 44 million teachers in the time Goal 4 allows.

We think the realistic path is to make each teacher reach further. Artificial intelligence is the first tool in a long time that can do that at the scale of the problem. It can draft a lesson plan in the morning's language, adapt a worksheet to a class of mixed ages, explain a concept a second and third way, and produce printed materials that cost almost nothing to reproduce. None of that replaces a teacher. All of it gives a teacher, or a parent or a community volunteer standing in for one, more to work with.

Our own books are an example. The illustrations were created with AI image tools under the author's direction, and the text was drafted with AI assistance and then edited. That is how a two-person publisher can produce a 59-page book, its Spanish edition and 153 pages of classroom units in weeks rather than years. We say so on every title.

How we think AI should be used in classrooms

A teacher stays in charge.AI drafts and adapts. A person decides what reaches children.
Local review before release.Our Spanish text is checked by teachers in three countries before it is printed.
Paper still matters.Many distant schools have no reliable power or internet. Printable materials reach them; apps often do not.
Say what was made with AI.Parents and schools have a right to know, and honest labelling builds the trust that wider use will need.

What's your SDG?

The SDGs as a prism for one life

The 17 goals were written for countries, and they are now used by cities, companies and communities. We think they work just as well for an individual.

Most people have done more for the goals than they realise. A nurse has worked on Goal 3 for decades. Someone who coached a girls' football team has worked on Goal 5. A grandparent who taught a child to fix things rather than throw them away has worked on Goal 12. Seen through the goals, a career and a life become a record of impact, and the gaps in that record show where the next effort could go.

That is the idea behind Small Hands, Big World. Children are asked what they can do for each goal, and they tick a box when they have done it. Adults can do the same thing on a larger scale.

1

Map your history

Go back through your work, volunteering and family life. Mark each goal you have contributed to, and note what you actually did.

2

Choose your tracks

Pick two or three goals to concentrate on. Choose where your experience is deepest, or where you most want to grow.

3

Write the plan

For each track, write one thing you will do this year and how you will know it worked. Review it every year on the day matched to that goal.

An example: the author's own map

Lit tiles are goals Ben Sandzer-Bell has worked on directly. The details are on the About page.

Start your own

Tap the goals you have already worked on, or want to. A space opens for each one. Nothing you type leaves your browser.

Launching in 2027Our 2027 initiative

Coming in 2027: the What's your SDG? quiz and game

A free quiz that shows anyone, at any age, which of the 17 goals they already serve and which they could take on next. It turns the impact map into a game a family, a classroom or a team can play together.

Personality tests have shown that people will happily spend ten minutes learning something about themselves. We want to use that habit for something useful. The quiz asks about the things you already do at home, at work and in your community, then scores you across the 17 goals. You come away with your own top tracks, the goals where you have the most to give, and a first step for each.

The quiz is the start. From there, players can go further at their own pace: a detailed personal profile of their 17 goals, a workbook to build a year's impact plan, and a card game that families play around the table. Schools, faith groups and workplaces get a kit to run the session themselves, with slides, a script, printable cards and a group map, so a whole class or team can see its combined impact on one page.

How it fits together

1

Take the quiz

Free and short. You see your top goals straight away.

2

Get your profile

A full report on all 17 goals, your impact history and the tracks that suit you best.

3

Play it together

A card game for families, and run-it-yourself kits for classrooms, faith groups and teams.

Where it comes from

What's your SDG? grows out of the two ideas on this site. Small Hands, Big World asks children what they can do for each goal. The impact map asks adults to look back over their lives through the same 17 lenses. The game brings both generations to the same table. We are testing it with families first, and will open it to schools and groups through 2027.

To join the 2027 pilot, write to bsb.crisa@gmail.com

About us

Ben Sandzer-Bell

Founder of Green Global Trek Publishing. An impact consultant trained in international economics at Johns Hopkins SAIS, who has lived and worked in Nicaragua, Japan, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Mexico. Here is his career, read through the goals it served.

▶ Watch Ben on YouTube

Co-founder

Peta Kaplan

Co-founder of Green Global Trek and of CO2 Bambu, early childhood educator and school psychologist by training, and the painter behind Street Dog Stories to Color: Learn to Read a Dog with the Street Dogs of Nicaragua.

Early childhood educator and school psychologistSouth Africa, Florida and Kentucky

Peta Kaplan holds a bachelor's degree in early childhood education and a master's degree in education, specialised in school psychology. She taught for several years in preschools in South Africa and in Florida, and trained as a school psychologist at a Head Start program in Kentucky, serving young children from low-income families. That training shapes how our books are written for children aged four to eight.

SDG 4 · Quality Education

Painter and animal welfare educatorGranada, Nicaragua and Chicago

Peta Kaplan's Stray Dogs of Nicaragua paintings, of the street dogs she photographed and sketched in Granada and painted in her Chicago studio, and the book made from them, Street Dog Stories to Color: Learn to Read a Dog with the Street Dogs of Nicaragua, are meant as a tool to teach animal welfare. Each page shows children one body-language clue, so they learn to read a dog before they approach it, to keep themselves safe, and to treat animals with empathy and care. Animal welfare is not a goal of its own in the SDGs; we place it under Life on Land, alongside Quality Education.

SDG 15 · Life on Land (animal welfare)SDG 4 · Quality Education

Our commitment

Working to the SDG Publishers Compact

The Compact, launched by the United Nations with the International Publishers Association, asks publishers to commit to ten actions. This is where we stand on each.

Green Global Trek Publishing is not affiliated with or endorsed by the United Nations. The ten actions are summarised from the UN's SDG Publishers Compact page.

Contact

Schools, distributors and partners

We welcome enquiries about class sets, school and library orders, translations, and SDG education programs with ministries, NGOs and foundations.

Emailbsb.crisa@gmail.com

Phone+1 773-698-5326

MailGreen Global Trek
1049 N Leavitt St Apt 3
Chicago, IL 60622, USA

Green Global Trek is a company registered in Alaska. Its founders live and work for most of the year in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Follow us on Instagram at @greenglobaltrek.