2011 Green Earth Book Award Celebration

April 2011 marked the seventh annual Green Earth Book Award, the nation’s only environmental stewardship book award. The Green Earth Book Award each year brings an expert jury together to determine winning children and young adult books with a message of environmental stewardship. The books raise awareness of the beauty of our natural world and the responsibility that we have to protect it.

The 2011 winners include:

Nonfiction Category

Not Your Typical high res cover.jpg
Not Your Typical Book About the Environment, written by Elin Kelsey and illustrated by Clayton Hanmer (published by Owlkids Books)

Picture Book Category

The Earth Book Cover
The Earth Book,
written and illustrated by Todd Parr (published by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)

Young Adult Fiction Category

Boys Bears Cover
Boys, Bears and a Serious Pair of Hiking Boots, written by Abby McDonald (published by Candlewick Press)

Children’s Fiction Category

Mallory Goes Green,
written by Laurie B. Friedman and illustrated by Jennifer Kalis (published by Darby Creek/Lerner Publishing Group)

The program has honored over 70 winning and honor books since its inception and continues to garner attention from the literary world as an esteemed award, bringing recognition to authors, but more importantly, providing the award-winning books to children.

The annual awards are presented at Salisbury University’s Children’s and Young Adult Literature Festival in Salisbury, Maryland. This year, over 450 people attended the award ceremony event where current and past Green Earth Book Award authors were recognized, including:

Henry Cole
Sneed Collard
Jen Cullerton Johnson
Elin Kelsey
Abby McDonald
Shelley Rotner
Sonia Sadler
Melissa Stewart

In addition to the award ceremony, the authors, illustrators, and photographers participated in panel discussions and visits to schools, creating a wide variety of options for the public to interact with these amazing literary professionals.

The Green Earth Book Award program also aims to bring the important message these authors share in their stories to children through donated books. During this year’s events, NMF donated books to 250 students in a Title I schools in Salisbury.

The Green Earth Book Award was featured this year on a wide variety of blogs and web sites, as well as in newspapers and on Delmarva Now, the Salisbury-based NRP affiliate.

Please join us next year on April 11, 2012 for the 2012 Green Earth Book Award!