2017 Green Earth Book Award “Long List” Announced — Brattleboro, Vermont
indie publisher has 3 titles on the list!
Geen Writers Press has recently been notified that three of our children’s books from the Sprouts for Kids Children’s Book line have been long listed for a national award for environmental stewardship in publishing, the 2017 Green Earth Book Award. The Nature Generation created the Green Earth Book Award to promote books that inspire children to grow a deeper appreciation, respect, and responsibility for their natural environment. This is an annual award for books that best raise awareness of the beauty of our natural world and the responsibility we have to protect it.
The Green Earth Book Award recognizes books in five categories – Picture Book, Children’s Fiction, Children’s Nonfiction, Young Adult Fiction, and Young Adult Nonfiction. In each category, the author/illustrator are awarded $1,500. The winners will be announced on Earth Day, April 22, 2017.
1. Broken Wing
Green Writers Press has recently published Broken Wing posthumously by celebrated Vermont poet David Budbill. Broken Wing is the story of one man’s love for birds and efforts to save a rusty blackbird that can’t fly south for the winter. The author worked closely with publisher Dede Cummings in order to finish the book before he died in late September of this year. The publisher enlisted local artist Donald Saaf, who illustrated the pages with stunning black and white collages that bring the book to life. The book is appropriate for young adult readers and adults. In Broken Wing, David Budbill has composed a monumental love letter to the natural world, an astute and minutely observed portrait of the avian inhabitants of a mysterious hillside orchard. The Man Who Lives Alone in the Mountains, a reclusive keeper of the earth whose soul is devoted to one injured rusty blackbird, embodies a narrative voice compelled to witness, in the rhythm and brutality of the seasons, the intimate patterns of the wild creatures surrounding his home. Budbill’s lyrical storytelling effortlessly transports the reader into his realm with a rare and poetic beauty.
2. KABOOM!
KABOOM! is the candidly comical and dynamic story of Cyndie and Ashley, two spunky and spirited teens from coal country West Virginia, who become activists overnight when their beloved mountain is threatened by Big Coal. This expertly crafted coming of age and rise to activism novel tracks the girls’ experience as they start their own club, Kids Against Blowing Off Our Mountaintops, as they explore the power of grassroots activism, and even as they both begin to fall in love for the first time. KABOOM!, published on Earth Day (April 22, 2016) by Green Writers Press, utilizes humorous narration and the lively dialogue of impassioned characters to make serious environmental issues more accessible for adolescents. This Young Adult novel can be categorized as a Romantic Comedy “Cli-Fi” (Climate Fiction), one sure to inspire teens to evoke positive change in the world around them.
The author, Brian Adams, is a recently retired professor Emeritus of Environmental Science at Greenfield Community College in western Massachusetts. His first novel, Love in the Time of Climate Change, was a Foreword Reviews IndieFAB Gold Medal Winner for Humor. He is active in the environmental movement and now devotes his time to writing romantic comedies centered on environmental activism. Brian lives with his wife in Northampton, Massachusetts.
2. Did Tiger Take the Rain?
Charles Norris-Brown was born in the small town of Warren, Pennsylvania. He completed a PhD degree in Social Anthropology and Sociology at Lund University, Sweden, in 1984, based on fieldwork in the inner hills of Uttarakhand, India. His other research his took him from India to the rainforest of Borneo, and to forest communities in eastern Canada and the Appalachian region of the USA. While visiting the Corbett National Park in India, he decided to combine his art, anthropology, and concern for the environment to focus on writing and illustrating children’s books. In time, he would visit western Nepal in 2011 and 2012, and develop what would become his first children’s book, Did Tiger Take the Rain?, an exquisitely told and illustrated tale of a Himalayan land without rain, of frightened farmers, and of courageous girls who go into the forest seeking an answer from the tiger they believe has stopped the rain out of anger. As one of the girls, Anjali, learns, ‘We all live under the same sky.’ The combination of gorgeous watercolors, a forest adventure, and the notion that children can act to make life better, creates a vibrant emotional message that welcomes multiple readings.
Review copies available upon request by contacting the publisher or distributor. Authors and artists are available for interviews (David Budbill’s daughter, Nadine Budbill, is the spokesperson for her father).
Upcoming spring titles include: Horse-Drawn Yogurt: Stories from Total Loss Farm by Vermont legend and communard, Peter Gould; One Man’s Maine by environmental essayist, Jim Kroschell; A Field Guide to Murder and Fly Fishing by fiction writer Tim Weed; Walking Through the Seasons: Observations and Reflections by Marilyn Neagley; Learning to See in Three Dimensions by Pamela Spiro Wagner; Roads Taken: Contemporary Vermont Poetry edited by Chard deNiord and Sydney Lea with an introduction by Dan Chiasson; Last Correspondence poems by Leland Kinsey, edited by Howard Frank Mosher; Clothesline Religion poetry by Megan Buchana; and for Children: Josie Meets a Jaguar, Book 2 in the Josie Goes Green Series by Beth Handman and the Bruno family of Brooklyn, NY. 
April 7th, at Next Stage Arts in Putney, Vermont, the press will be featured at the annual Earth Day celebration and reading.
OF NOTE: Our children’s picture book, Ralph Flies the Coop, will be “flying” to the Bologna International Children’s Book Fair this spring.
All titles are distributed by Midpoint Trade Books, New York and Tennessee and available wherever books are sold.
Green Writers Press is a Vermont-based, global publisher whose mission is to spread a message of hope and renewal. Read more at http://www.greenwriterspress.
Thank you for helping us spread the word!
Our 2nd Annual GWP Earth Day Celebration at Next Stage Arts in Putney, Vermont, is on April 24th from 5:00-8:00 PM with readings/slides/music. Hosted by Vermont’s celebrated writer, Howard Frank Mosher.
