The Story of Wangari MaathaiFor: Everyone!
Pub: 2008
Rating: Super
Read: Sept. 3, 2008
Wangari Maathai won the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize and founded the Green Belt Movement in Kenya. Born in 1940, she went to America to college on scholarhip, returning to her native Kenya after five years to find her country much changed. Water was gone from the sreambeds, land eroded, trees cut, and the people no longer living on the food they grew for themselves. This one woman, courageously and without giving up, spent the next 30 years growing trees from seeds, teaching the women of her country how to help her, and giving away tree seedlings to all - school children, prisoners, soldiers. It was hard work.
Text of book
"And so in the thirty years since Wangari began her movement, tree by tree, person by person, thirty million trees have been planted in Kenya - and the planting has not stopped."
An inspiring story. There are two books for adults - her memoir, Unbowed: A Memoir (2005), and The Green Belt Movement: Sharing the Approach and the Experience (2003) that I'd now like to read. I will read this book to THA Student Government before our Passport to Peace planning begins.
The illustrations are lovely - shade after shade of green, using white as her emphasizing color in bold, beautiful watercolors. And, oh, the African fabrics! Luscious. And inspiring.
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