Review by New York Times Review
CHILDREN are natural environmentalists. Not yet conditioned to separate themselves from the rest of creation, especially from other mobile, noisy, eating and excreting creatures, they delight in all that grows. In awesomely clumsy fashion, they care for anything that is given to them, apt to love too much rather than too little think of a toddler petting a golden retriever and they have an instinctual distaste for desolation. Offer a parking lot or a garden as a play space, and see which gets the love. Somewhere along the way, most of us lose this connectedness; or, as our field of action enlarges, our environmental horizons do not. We disassociate our natural affections from the natural world. Two new picture books about Wangari Maathai, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004, aim to halt that process at just the right moment of child development, when wonder and wider awareness briefly coexist. Sophisticated and humane, these books want to help children's concerns go beyond the local and the fantastical (see "The Lorax," "Wall-E") to a faraway country with problems very dissimilar to our own. Maathai's Nobel was the first given to an environmental activist, for her work in Kenya's Green Belt Movement. She inspired and helped organize the planting of 30 million trees in 30 African countries, and protested destructive growth in Nairobi and elsewhere. Maathai is still at it, currently trying to stop a sugarcane project in a Kenyan delta. These picture books wisely focus on her early career, which affords the clearest story line: a girl who loved trees, and mourned their loss, helped reforest her home. "Planting the Trees of Kenya," written and illustrated by Claire A. Nivola, tells the story both in wide angle and in detail. Her stippled landscapes feature intricate views of Kenyan farmland, full of women in colorful outfits, and men, women and children bearing seedlings. Nivola explains: "They did not need schooling to plant trees. They did not have to wait for the government to help them. They could begin to change their own lives." Yet this radically democratic message makes "Planting the Trees of Kenya" an oddly personality-free book for a biography. Wangari Maathai's face, never in close-up, is always stoic, and the colors are muted, washed out even before the topsoil is washed away. We are told about the Benedictine nuns who run the American college Maathai attended, and about the conflict between small family farms and "large plantations growing tea for export," but the little girl who loved trees is lost amid all the information. Social movements are necessary for social change, but a poor substitute for individual action in children's books. Jeanette Winter's simpler, more down-to-earth book, "Wangari's Trees of Peace," strikes the balance between fact and child-friendliness. With blocky illustrations and bright colors, Maathai is treated as a friendly icon rather than a subject of realism. (The boat to college in America steams directly from giraffe to Statue of Liberty.) As a child Wangari harvests sweet potatoes with her mother, and after college she gets her knees dirty with first seedlings of her own; she's a role model who makes gardening look like serious, if back-aching, fun. This is a heroine children can relate to. SHE is also one whose story will bring up uncomfortable issues. Men laugh at the women planting trees: '"Women can't do this,' they say. 'It takes trained foresters to plant trees.'" Later, a policeman beats Maathai with a billy club at a demonstration against tree-cutting, with bloody results. These episodes, absent from "Planting the Trees of Kenya," suggest that activism, like planting, is hard work. We see Maathai in jail: "And still she stands tall. Right is right, even if you're alone." She is not alone, as the sequence of planting women on the next page makes clear, but how she gets out of jail remains mysterious. Real-life environmentalism is complicated! That truth presents the greatest obstacle to turning even green-thumbed children into green-acting citizens. But global consciousness has to start somewhere. It is the one plant, the one girl who inspires the lifelong, worldwide change. "We are planting the seeds of hope," Maathai tells the village women in Jeanette Winter's book. The trick is to turn those seeds into a revitalized earth. Simon Rodberg, a writer in Washington, D.C., taught eletnentary and secondary school English for five years.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [October 27, 2009]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Kenyan activist Wangari Maathai was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 for her environmental and human rights achievements. Founder of the Green Belt Movement, she has encouraged people to repair their economy, land, and health with simple, environmentally friendly acts, such as planting more trees. This beautiful picture-book biography echoes the potent simplicity of Maathai's message with direct, spare prose and bright, delicate watercolors. Tracking forward from Maathai's childhood in the rich landscape of Kenya's highlands, the words and pictures clearly show how the activist's deep connection with nature as a youth inspired her to develop sustainable practices as an adult. Nivola writes about potentially complex, abstract relationships, such as those between ecological preservation and human health, with clear language that shows connections that children will easily grasp. The story of how each human and tree can make a difference will inspire young people, who will want to linger over the wide, double-page landscapes picturing people restoring stripped land to green, thriving communities and forests. An author's note offers more about Maathai's inspiring story. Point teachers and parents seeking more information to Maathai's autobiography, Unbowed (2006), which was named a Booklist Adult Editor's Choice.--Engberg, Gillian Copyright 2008 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Text, pictures, subject and pacing all contribute to the success of Nivola's (Elisabeth) picture book biography of Wangari Maathai, the 2004 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. In the first pages, Wangari watches her mother in the garden; the pale mountains, blue sky and profusion of growing things testify to Kenya's primeval beauty. Educated at a Benedictine college in Kansas, Maathai returns to her native country to find the land stripped for commercial farming. Others sigh; she is galvanized. She stands among women whose colorful skirts belie their poverty, and she teaches them to plant trees. Not even Kenya's soldiers escape her campaign: "You hold your guns... but what are you protecting?" she demands. "You should hold the gun in your right hand and a tree seedling in your left." Thirty million trees later, the soil--and small farms--thrive again. Simultaneously childlike and sophisticated, Nivola's paintings have the detail of tapestry and the dignity of icons. The idea of restoring ruined land to its original beauty will fill readers of all ages with hope. Nivola makes children feel it is possible for anyone to change the course of history if they set their mind to it. An author's note provides additional biographical and political details. Ages 5-8. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 2-4-Wangari Maathai, founder of the Green Belt Movement, was the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. This simple story focuses on her conservation efforts, with little mention of her personal life and political struggles. Maathai studied biology in the United States in the early 1960s. When she returned to the newly independent Kenya five years later, she noticed that her country's natural resources were disappearing rapidly and that the people were growing poorer. She devised a strategy to reverse the desertification of Kenya by teaching women how to collect tree seeds and plant and nurture them. Since 1977, 30 million trees have been planted and her conservation lessons have moved across Africa and the world. The delicately detailed illustrations suit the equally low-key writing style. They effectively show the natural beauty of the landscape and convey the scope of the problems associated with deforestation. The artist is equally adept at portraying Wangari as she moves about the countryside and spreads her message among the people. This tale of civic responsibility, personal initiative, and conservation of natural resources is a timely one although it raises as many questions as it answers. An author's note provides a bit more background on Maathai's efforts. Add this to collections in need of easy materials on Kenya, conservation, or women leaders.-Carol S. Surges, McKinley Elementary School, Wauwatosa, WI (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
(Primary) As an illustrator, Nivola is a double threat -- equally adept at complementing the words of others (The Silent Witness, The Flag Maker) and, in books of her own, giving the pictures the dramatic lead. For the story of Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan woman who made her despoiled homeland blossom again, she creates absorbing, telltale images -- sweeping views of the countryside with miniature human figures, in the manner of folk paintings. As a small child Maathai looks out over a vast green world, where even the fallen branches of the sacred fig tree are left untouched; after five years of college in America (per a charming bird's-eye view of Benedictine nuns and 1950s co-eds), she confronts a vastly different landscape. Gone are the little farms that fed each family ("much of the land was as bare as a desert"); the sacred fig tree itself has been cut down. Maathai rallies the women to plant trees, seedling by seedling. The men join in, the movement spreads, food crops are planted again. In two strong, successive images, Maathai presents seedlings to uniformed schoolchildren and to uniformed soldiers. "You hold your gun," she tells the soldiers, "but what are you protecting? The whole country is disappearing...You should hold the gun in your right hand and a tree seedling in your left." Maathai's words, deftly inserted, help explain the achievement that brought her the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize. Nivola's own words, in turn, have the simple eloquence of a traditional tale, while a concluding author's note provides factual ballast. The whole is as much a pleasure as an inspiration. From HORN BOOK, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Laced with gracefully told anecdotes, this picture-book biography examines the work of Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize-winner Maathai, who returned from college abroad to find her country ecologically imperiled. With the shift from small, local farms to large commercial ventures Kenya's trees were disappearing, women were forced to hunt further afield for firewood and desertification threatened. The story of Maathai's Green Belt Movement lends itself well to Nivola's treatment. The often-panoramic scenes of country and village life possess a detailed, näive charm that beautifully explicates Maathai's social progress as she instructs women, schoolchildren and even prison inmates in the benefits of planting and nurturing trees. In one effective spread, Maathai says to soldiers: "You hold your gun . . . but what are you protecting? The whole country is disappearing with the wind and water." In the facing painting Maathai stands before a group of attentive, black-capped, red-coated soldiers and gestures to a map of Kenya posted above a cheery row of potted seedlings. This impressive effort will resonate with children. (author's note, source note) (Picture book/biography. 5-9) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
