Children’s books set in Kenya

Scroll down for Children’s books set in Kenya, but first check out our section about children’s books about Wagari Maathai.

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Spotlight: Children’s books about Wangari Maathai

A popular Buzzfeed feature is to take thought-provoking tweets or Tumblrs and combine them into a post. And one that I read recently really made me think. It was (roughly) “Why is it that, in movies, when people time travel from the future they’re so scared to do something small that will change the course of history, but we don’t think the little thing we do today matters?”*

I thought of this idea recently when I looked more into Wangari Muta Maathai.

As I was researching books to add to the Kenya bookshelf, I noticed that many of them were about Wangari. Who is she?

Wangari grew up in Kenya. She went to college in the United States and Germany. Upon returning to Kenya, she noticed that the trees she remembered from her childhood were gone. So she planted more.

Through her organization, she employed 30,000 women and they planted 30 million trees. She became a political activist. She was the first woman in East or Central Africa to obtain a Ph.D.

And in 2004 she won the Nobel Peace Prize.

The Nobel Peace Prize 2004 was awarded to Wangari Maathai “for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace”. – source

Throughout the world you can find tributes to her and her legacy. One is the Wangari Gardens in Washington D.C. There are also memorials at the two colleges she attended in the United States: Wangari Maathai Trees and Garden on the lawn of the University of Pittsburgh and at the Benedictine College. In Kenya, Forest Road has been renamed Wangari Maathai Road.

Most importantly, her quote resonates with me:

It’s the little things citizens do. That’s what will make the difference. My little thing is planting trees. Wangari Maathai

Children’s books about Wangari Maathai

And these are the books we have in our directory about her:

• Mama Miti: Wangari Maathai and the Trees of Kenya
• Planting the Trees of Kenya: The Story of Wangari Maathai
• Seeds of Change: Wangari’s Gift to the World
• Wangari Maathai: The Woman Who Planted Millions of Trees
• Wangari’s Trees of Peace: A True Story from Africa

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*I know this is really paraphrased and I will find the original source that was much more eloquent.

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