Planting the Trees of Kenya: The Story of Wangari Maathai

Written by: Claire A. Nivola

Why you should read this book: A beautiful melding of biography and environmentalism, this is the true story of the life of Wangari Maathai, a Kenyan girl who grew up in a lush, tree-covered land, spent five years in America studying biology, and came home to find her country nearly deforested and suffering from poor land stewardship. A one-woman dynamo, she convinced the largely unlettered women of Kenya that they could improve their situation by planting trees--over thirty million of them, at the time of the book's writing--and changed the face of her nation. Maathai won the Nobel Peace Prize for her work, and seems to have largely protected her people from privation, but never considered her action brave or extraordinary.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You're chopping down truffula trees just as fast as you can.