Mama Miti: Wangari Maathai and the Trees of Kenya - Hardcover

by Donna Jo Napoli (Author), Kadir Nelson (Illustrator)

An NAACP Image Award Nominee
"In a word, stunning." --Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

The inspiring true story of environmental activist Mama Miti comes to vivid life in this nonfiction picture book featuring illustrations by Kadir Nelson, winner of the Coretta Scott King - Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement!

Through artful prose and beautiful illustrations, Donna Jo Napoli and Kadir Nelson tell the true story of Wangari Muta Maathai, known as "Mama Miti," who in 1977 founded the Green Belt Movement, an African grassroots organization that has empowered many people to mobilize and combat deforestation, soil erosion, and environmental degradation.

Today, more than 30 million trees have been planted throughout Mama Miti's native Kenya, and in 2004 she became the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Wangari Muta Maathai has changed Kenya tree by tree--and with each page turned, children will realize their own ability to positively impact the future.

Author Biography

Donna Jo Napoli is the acclaimed and award-winning author of many novels, both fantasies and contemporary stories. She won the Golden Kite Award for Stones in Water in 1997. Her novel Zel was named an American Bookseller Pick of the Lists, a Publishers Weekly Best Book, a Bulletin Blue Ribbon, and a School Library Journal Best Book, and a number of her novels have been selected as ALA Best Books. She is a professor of linguistics at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, where she lives with her husband. Visit her at DonnaJoNapoli.com.

Kadir Nelson has been honored with the Coretta Scott King - Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement, acknowledging his significant and lasting contribution to children's literature. He is an award-winning American artist whose works have been exhibited in major national and international publications, institutions, art galleries, and museums. Nelson's work has won the Coretta Scott King Award, the Robert F. Sibert Award, two Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Awards, and the 2005 Society of Illustrators Gold Medal. His beloved, award-winning, and bestselling picture books include We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball; Thunder Rose, written by Jerdine Nolen; Ellington Was Not a Street, written by Ntozake Shange; Salt in His Shoes, written by Deloris Jordan and Roslyn M. Jordan; and many more. Kadir lives in Los Angeles.