Green Earth Book Award Celebration

Join us as we celebrate the winners of the 2009 Green Earth Book Award! This event is part of Salisbury University’s Children and Young Adult Literature Festival.

April 15, 2008 - 6:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
Salisbury University
Holloway Hall
Salisbury, Maryland

This event is free and open to the public

The following Green Earth Award-winning authors will be in attendance:
Peter Gould, Write Naked
Jeca Taudte, MySpace/Our Planet: Change is Possible
Pamela Todd, Blind Faith Hotel

These well-known authors will also be featured at this event:
Phillip Hoose, Hey, Little Ant
Ted Lewin, Peppe the Lamplighter
Betsy Lewin, Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type

For more information, contact Jenny Schmidt
703-727-8242 or jenny@newtonmarascofoundation.org

Thanks to our Partners and Sponsors

About all the Green Earth Book Award Authors and Illustrators

Marc Craste is a senior animation director working at Studio AKA in London. Before coming to the UK in 1998, Marc worked extensively in animation studios in Sydney and in Copenhagen. Marc has designed and directed many award-winning commercials. His 12-minute debut short film, ‘JoJo in the Stars’, won the 2004 BAFTA for Best Animated Short Film. Marc’s first illustrative project for Templar was the remarkable picture book Varmints, written by Helen Ward. Since its publication, Marc has also directed a half-hour animated short film based on the book. The film premièred in the US at the Rhode Island International Film Festival where it won the Grand Prize for Best Animation. It has since gone on to win six first prizes at international festivals, been short-listed for the Academy Awards and recently received a nomination for the BAFTA Best Short Animation.

Peter Gould is known and loved all around Vermont as a clown, mime, and teacher of physical comedy and positive self-esteem. He’s founder of “Get Thee to the Funnery” Shakespeare camps and teaches theatre skills at the Vermont Governor’s Institute of the Arts. He teaches inner-peace and meditation at the Brandeis University Peace and Justice Institute. Now, Peter has written a novel that is being read throughout the state and beyond, and helping to jump start an important youth movement of honesty, mutuality, and passion: for artistic expression, sustainable living, and rescuing our global environment.

Bill Harley is a two-time Grammy award-winning artist and recipient of the Magic Penny Award from the Children’s Music Network. Bill uses song and story to paint a vibrant and hilarious picture of growing up, schooling and family life. His work spans the generation gap, reminds us of our common humanity and challenges us to be our very best selves. A prolific author and recording artist, Bill is also a regular commentator for NPR’s “All Things Considered” and featured on PBS. He joined the National Storytelling Network’s Circle of Excellence in 2001 and tours nationwide as an author, performing artist and keynote speaker.

Claire Nivola is an artist, illustrator and author. She illustrated her first children’s book after graduating from Radcliffe College and used her artistic skills in a variety of ways, including mural painting, graphic design, and exhibits of paintings and sculptures. Claire has two children, and being a mother has absorbed her heart and intellect almost completely. She chose to stay home with her children and work only when she could do so without disrupting family life. In 1994, she returned to illustrating children’s books, enriched by having had her children.

Jeca Taudte is a freelance writer, editor and documentary producer in Brooklyn, New York. Her writing has appeared in Newsweek, The New York Times magazine, Talk, Brill’s Content and Time Out New York, and her production credits include a variety of news, biography and feature shows for VH1. In summer 2006, Jeca lived in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where she produced a PBS news segment on how illegal mineral mining fuels conflict in the region as well as an educational video on using participatory theater for conflict resolution. She has a Masters in International Affairs from Columbia University. She is currently working on a documentary about the disparities in breast cancer treatment. MySpace/OurPlanet: Change is Possible was her first book.

Pamela Todd is the author of Blind Faith Hotel (Simon and Schuster, 2008) and Pig and the Shrink (Delacorte, 1999). She is an avid prairie gardener, a core teaching artist for the Ragdale Foundation, and a popular speaker at schools, conferences and events. She’s been awarded grants from the Illinois Arts Council and the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.

Helen Ward trained as an illustrator at Brighton School of Art. In 1985, Helen was awarded the first Walker Prize for Children’s Illustration. In 1999 Helen was the winner of the book category in the UK National Art Library Illustration Awards for the The Hare and the Tortoise. In 2000, Helen illustrated a new edition of The Wind in the Willows, which repeated this feat. Since then, Helen has written and illustrated many titles, including her unique story, Varmints.