Books > Mama Miti

* “Nelson’s (We Are the Ship) breathtaking portraits of Maathai often have a beatific quality; bright African textiles represent fields, mountains, and Maathai’s beloved trees… Napoli (The Earth Shook) creates a vivid portrait of the community from which Maathai’s tree-planting mission grows.”

—Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW

 

 “A beautiful introduction for children just learning about the Greenbelt Movement.”

 

                                                                                                                           —School Library Journal

 

“Luminous illustrations are the highlight of this third recent picture-book biography of Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan environmental activist who received the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize. In brief, poetic lines thathave a folktale tone, Napoli describes how “wise Wangari” helped Kenyan village women solve problems from hunger to dirty water with the same solution: “Plant a tree.” Most noteworthy is Nelson’s vibrant collage artwork, which features soaring portraits and lush landscapes in oil paint and printed fabrics.”

—Booklist

“Illustrator Kadir Nelson intensifies the text's tribute to East African culture, mixing oil paints and textiles in collages that capture the quest of women looking for answers as well as the beauty and vastness of Maathai's project . .  Especially dazzling… Makes vibrantly clear how strong and resourceful Maathai and other African women have been in restoring trees and peace to their world.”

—The Washington Post

“This picture book glows from every page as Napoli and Nelson write and illustrate the inspiring story of ecologist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai…. A lovely, stirring picture book with a simple message for us all: in the midst of change, development, and upheaval, there is always a place for wisdom and peace.”
— Mark David Bradshaw, Watermark Books, Kansas

"Will inspire children of all ages.”

—Ellen Scott, The Bookworm, Omaha, Nebraska

"When Wangari Maathai won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004, her Green Belt Movement had planted 30 million trees in Africa, starting in her native Kenya. Her big-picture approach has also led to a healthy crop of children's books, including this new one, whose big pictures are especially dazzling. For the text, Donna Jo Napoli has taken a folkloric route, beginning with a procession of village women who come to Maathai for advice on how to survive with too little food, firewood or shelter. Using the names of trees from her native language, she suggests planting different species to address each woman's worry, like a doctor prescribing medicine. Illustrator Kadir Nelson intensifies the text's tribute to East African culture, mixing oil paints and textiles in collages that capture the quest of women looking for answers as well as the beauty and vastness of Maathai's project. Although these richly hued illustrations don't resemble those in Nelson's monumental "We Are the Ship" (2008), about Negro League baseball players, "Mama Miti" (which means "the mother of trees") makes vibrantly clear how strong and resourceful Maathai and other African women have been in restoring trees and peace to their world.

"Napoli adopts a folkloric narrative technique to showcase the life work of Wangari Maathai, whose seminal role in Kenya’s reforestation earned her the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004. When, one after the other, women journey to Maathai to seek counsel about scarce food, disappearing firewood and ailing animals, she tells them, “Plant a tree….Thayu nyumba—peace, my people.” Specific tree species and their utility are mentioned in the text and reiterated in a glossary. Nelson’s pictures, a jaw-dropping union of African textiles collaged with oil paintings, brilliantly capture the villagers’ clothing and the greening landscape. The richly modulated oils portray the dignified, intent gazes of Maathai and other Kenyans, and the illustrator’s signature use of perspective suggests the everyday heroism of his subjects. In addition to incorporating the fabric collages (and some whimsy in his animal depictions), the artist newly focuses on landscape, with many double-page spreads depicting undulating fields, distant mountains and a white-hot sky. Deserving of a special place with Claire Nivola’s Planting the Trees of Kenya (2008), this is, in a word, stunning. (afterword, glossary, author’s and illustrator’s notes)." 

  

"This is the true story of Wangari Muta Maathi, a Kenyan woman who helped to bring trees back to a sadly deforested country. Her grassroots efforts to help her people and the environment at the same time had a profound effect not only on Kenya, but on people all over the world who heard her story and who learned her lessons.  With a lyrical text and stunning multimedia art, this picture book is a must for every reader, both young and not so young."