[CALIBK12] Richie's Picks: PLANTING THE TREES OF KENYA: THE STORY OF WANGARI MAATHAI

[BudNotBuddy at aol.com]

Richie's  Picks:  PLANTING THE TREES OF KENYA: THE STORY OF WANGARI MAATHAI 
by Claire A. Nivola,  FSG/Frances Foster Books, April 2008, 32p. ISBN: 
0-374-39918-2 
"The  farms of Ohio had been replaced by shopping malls 
And  muzak filled the air from Seneca to Cuyahoga Falls."  
--  The Pretenders, "My City was Gone" 
"As  Wangari Maathai tells it, when she was growing up on a farm in the hills 
of  central Kenya, the earth was clothed in its dress of  green. 
"Fig  trees, olive trees, crotons, and flame trees covered the land, and fish 
filled  the pure waters of the streams. 
"The  fig tree was sacred then, and Wangari knew not to disturb it, not even 
to carry  its fallen branches home for firewood.  In the stream near her 
homestead  where she went to collect water for her mother, she played with 
glistening  frogs' eggs, trying to gather them like beads into necklaces, though they  
slipped through her fingers back into clear water." 
But  in the early 1960s Wangari Maathai left Kenya for five years in order to 
 attend college in Kansas.  It was during that time that Kenya gained  
independence from Britain.  And in the manner with  which Claire Nivola tells and 
illustrates the story, Wangari's return to  Kenya reminds me of the old 
Pretenders' song.  For there had been numerous  and radical changes in the landscape 
of Kenya during Wangari's  absence:  
"Wangari  found the fig tree cut down, the little stream dried up, and no 
traces of frogs,  tadpoles, or the silvery beads of eggs...Wangari noticed that 
the people no  longer grew what they ate but bought food from stores.  The 
store food was  expensive, and the little they could afford was not as good for 
them  as what they had grown themselves, so that children, even grownups, were 
weaker  and often sickly."   
Meanwhile,  the cutting of the remaining forests for wood to burn as fuel led 
 to widespread erosion and the degradation of streams and  rivers. 
And  so it was that Wangari Maathai came up with her "simple and big idea" of 
getting  tens, then hundreds, then thousands of Kenyans to grow and plant 
trees.   Her idea evolved into the Greenbelt Movement and, in the long run, led 
to her  winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004. 
Claire  Nivola's watercolor paintings climax with a two page spread in which  
an endless stream of Kenyans carrying seedlings are seen traversing the  
mountains to a hillside where the forest is being restored meter by meter.    
The  story is followed by an extensive Author's Note which includes 
information  about Wangari putting her body on the line in recent years to fight  
ill-conceived government schemes.   
At  a time when I am so often distraught due to the seemingly inevitable  
deterioration of the planet I am leaving my children, it is inspiring  to read a 
book that so well illustrates how one person's singular  vision, 
determination, and leadership can radically (and  literally) transform the landscape.    
Richie  Partington, MLIS
Richie's Picks _http://richiespicks.com_ (http://richiespicks.com/) 
Moderator, _http://groups.yahoo.com/group/middle_school_lit/_ 
(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/middle_school_lit/) 
BudNotBuddy at aol.com
_http://www.myspace.com/richiespicks_ (http://www.myspace.com/richiespicks) 
Caldecott  '09 





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