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Bock Book Award-Winner Highlights
Nobel Prize Awardee

Donna Jo Napoli (center), the 2011 Bock Book Award-Winner sits with students from the Drexel Neumann Academy. Napoli’s book, Mama Miti, tells the story of 2004 Noble Peace Prize Winner Wangari Maathai.

 

Neumann University held the Frances and Wesley Bock Book Award for Children’s Literature on Tuesday, October 4. Mama Miti, written by Donna Jo Napoli, was this year’s winner. The book tells the story of Wangari Maathai, who was the founder of the Green Belt Movement and received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004.

She was the first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a doctorate degree. In 1976, while she was serving the National Council of Women, she introduced the idea of community-based tree planting, with the organization that became known as the Green Belt Movement. Maathai has assisted women in planting more than 40 million trees on community lands. She received the Nobel Peace Prize for her work with the Green Belt Movement.

Children from the Center for Child Development at Neumann and the Drexel Neumann Academy, came to watch Napoli read her book and show the illustrations. The award acknowledges Franciscan values in children’s books and gives each year’s winner a prize of $500, a plaque, and a gold emblazoned emblem for the book. The text for the book should be values-oriented, interesting and stimulating for ages 3-8 years, and pleasing and aesthetic. The illustrations should provide support for interpreting the story, instill a reverence for and compassion for all creation, and depict creation, in all of its diversity.

10/11/11

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