Plant a Single Tree: Mama Miti: Wangari Manthai and the Trees of Kenya by Donna Jo Napoli

WANGARI CHANGED A COUNTRY, TREE BY TREE.

SHE TAUGHT HER PEOPLE THE ANCIENT WISDOM OF PEACE WITH NATURE.

NOW SHE IS TEACHING THE WORLD.

SHE IS KNOWN THESE DAYS AS MOTHER MITI, THE MOTHER OF TREES.

A GREEN BELT OF PEACE STARTED WITH ONE GOOD WOMAN OFFERING SOMETHING WE CAN ALL DO.

"PLANT A TREE."

Multiple award-winning author Donna Jo Napoli's latest, Mama Miti: Wangari Maathai and the Trees of Kenya, (Simon & Schuster, 2010) uses simple language to tell the story of Kenya's Wangari Manthai, a "wise woman" whose work began a program of reforestration in Kenya. Napoli starts her narrative with a folkloric introduction going back to ancient times:

Creatures suffered. Plants wilted. People fought.

So the men held ceremonies under Magumo--the spreading sacred fig--and the skies blessed them with the shimmering rains to slake their thirst and water their farms.

Remembering the old stories, Wangari saw that restoring the trees which had been lost over the centuries would solve many of her nation's basic problems.

A woman came... Her daughters stood beside her, thin as ropes.

"My daughters and I walk hours each day to find firewood to cook with," said the poor woman. "It takes so long. We have no time for anything else. What can we do?"

Wangari said, "These arms are strong. Here are seedlings of the mukinduri. This tree makes good firewood. Plant as many as you can."

There are many places on earth where deforestration, resulting simply from the human search for firewood, building materials, and cleared land for crops, has had serious consequences. Wangari's simple lesson, for each individual to plant as many new trees as possible, perhaps seems simplistic, but it has proved effective in Kenya and offers long-term benefit to nations such as Haiti, where deforestration has produced catastrophic mudslides and forced the population to rely on construction with concrete, sensible for hurricane protection, but potentially deadly in case of earthquake.

The Caldecott-award winning artist Kadir Nelson provides strong and evocative illustrations which make this book an appealing teaching resource for Earth Day, Arbor Day, or any time when ecological units of study focus on personal activity and responsibility for their own environment.

As the old sayings go, "A journey of a thousand steps begins with a single step" and "It's better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness." Anyone can help plant a tree and each tree can make a difference.