Interview with author/illustrator Claire A. Nivola
by Marjorie Coughlan*

Claire A. Nivola was born in New York in 1947. She grew up in the city but spend school vacations on Long Island, the setting for her picture book Elisabeth. As a child, she loved being read to and, the daughter of artists, she started drawing and sculpting at an early age.

Shortly after graduating in History and Literature from Radcliffe College, Claire illustrated her first picture book, The Disobedient Eels and Other Italian Tales. Since then, she has illustrated, as well as authored, a number of other picture books to critical acclaim, including Planting the Trees of Kenya: The Story of Wangari Maathai, which won the 2009 Jane Addams Children's Book Award and was a 2009 Africana Book Awards Honor Book for Young Children. Planting the Trees of Kenya was also selected for inclusion in the 2010 Spirit of PaperTigers Project.

Claire A. Nivola lives in Newton Highlands, Massachusetts.
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Your book, Planting the Trees of Kenya, is the winner of many awards and accolades, including the prestigious Jane Addams Children's Book Award and our Spirit of PaperTigers seal. What first drew you to creating this picture-book biography of Wangari Maathai?

I had long wanted to do a children's book about our environmental crisis and when I heard an hour-long interview with Wangari Maathai on National Public Radio, I knew I had found my subject. Her story, as she told it, was a parable anyone of any age could understand about how we are destroying the natural environment, which gives us life and sustains us. The environmental crisis we are in is complicated and overwhelming even for adults to absorb. I wanted a story, like Wangari Maathai's, that was graspable and not depressing, not discouraging. A child is just beginning in life and needs to have hope.

What message do you hope Planting the Trees of Kenya sends to children? 

In Wangari Maathai's story, the women of Kenya are cutting down the trees they need in order to survive–to burn for cooking, to build their homes with. Hearing her story, even a young child can ask, what am I doing? How am I contributing to the problem? Wangari teaches the women to become aware; she teaches them to take responsibility for their part and, here's the beauty of it, she teaches them to take action to turn things around.

What are some of the responses you have had from children, regarding the book?

Children seem to 'get' the story and to like it. I think–I hope –it makes them think about how what each of us does has consequences, and gives them a desire to take steps to make positive changes. Wangari is full of energy and her energy is contagious, even third-hand through a book!

Some of the books you have illustrated in the past have focused on aspects of American cultural history. Were there any marked similarities or differences in the way you approached your work on Planting the Trees of Kenya, in terms of research or artistic technique?

Certainly the setting of Kenya couldn't have been more different, but in a way my approach was similar. In all non-fiction cases I have to learn what things look like, whether back in time, or in another part of the world: houses, vegetation, landscape, objects, how people dress, how they wear their hair, everything. My technique is simple: I visit the library and xerox pages from books with photographs or drawings of all the many, many things I need to learn to draw. Then I make myself a sort of visual dictionary that I can refer to as I make my illustrations.

I wish, in the case of Planting the Trees of Kenya, that I had been able to go to Kenya and see it for myself. Instead, I could only immerse myself in photographs of the countryside and people until I felt I could almost imagine being there.

Do you think it is important to have stories that delve into cultural heritage?

To be honest, I have illustrated books on American History quite by chance. Once I did one, I was seen as someone who, among other things, "does American History." There is type-casting with illustrators just as there is with actors! This is not to say that I think exposing children to cultural heritages of all types is not important. Quite the contrary. But the books I write myself (as opposed to those I might illustrate) are not motivated by any particular agenda – though more and more I must admit to feeling an urgency to draw the attention of children, their parents, and their teachers to the growing crisis of the environment.

You grew up as the daughter of artists who were part of the American avant-garde movement.  How did that influence you yourself as an artist?

Though it's true that I grew up knowing many of the artists of the time, the Abstract Expressionist movement had little influence on my parents and no influence on me whatsoever. Growing up with a mother who made beautiful things with her hands and a father whose studio was always a warmly open invitation to me, probably shaped me in every way.

In college I studied History and Literature and stayed clear of the arts, but in the end I came back to what I had grown up doing–drawing and painting, as if it were the air one breaths.

Where do you best like to paint?

I paint in a room that also serves as a dining room. It has marvelous light and I can spread out my papers on the big table. I use watercolors and gouache, both. I work by daylight only, and while I paint I listen to the radio or to music. It seems that listening uses a different part of the brain than the part that directs my eyes and my hands!

More than 30 years ago, you illustrated Save the Earth! Things to Know, Things to Do: An Ecology Handbook for Kids by Betty Miles – how do you think things have changed since then, in terms of environmental consciousness, and what hopes do you hold for the future?

There is no question that enormous strides have been made since then in our consciousness of the environment, and by "our" I include that of children as well as adults and my own, which was very undeveloped at that time. The tragedy is that the damage we have done to the environment in those 30 years, and that we continue to do, far outstrips the progress we have made in awareness. Knowledge and awareness are one thing; action– changing how we live–is another. Unlike the women in the Wangari Maathai parable, we have not translated awareness into action.

Though I strongly believe that children must not be made to feel helpless in the face of environmental issues, I must confess that I myself have ever less hope for the future. I am not a believer in a technological solution. Humankind's sense of mastery over nature has gotten us to the plight we are in, and I don't believe it will get us out. What I believe is needed is a change in our values and way of life, a willingness to give up our excesses and engage in a 'sustainable' relationship with the natural world around us. Are we capable of such a radical change? I don't think so; and time, the damage already done, and the sheer scale of human population are working against a felicitous outcome. I hope very much that I am wrong.

Do you have any new books coming out soon?

Yes, this Spring a book by Linda Glaser entitled Emma's Poem will be published by Houghton Mifflin with my illustrations. It tells the story of Emma Lazarus and the famous poem she wrote which is at the base of the Statue of Liberty.

I am also just finishing a book of my own with Farrar, Straus & Giroux called Orani, which tells the composite story of my  childhood visits to my father's hometown in Sardinia, Italy.

If you were to pick a place anywhere in the world to send Planting the Trees of Kenya, where would it be and why?

I would think that the most important places to send the books would be to areas most affected by deforestation. Southeast Asia and South America are areas of enormous concern. But the list of countries is long: the countries of Central America, Brazil, Madagascar, Haiti, Mexico, India, Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Myanmar, Malaysia, Bangladesh, China, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Guinea, Ghana, Cote d' Ivoire. Too many! And unless there are translations provided, the books are useless to children who don't read English. So, I would choose any of the above countries where English is spoken or taught in the schools. However, any country where children are in need would have my blessings. The Wangari Maathai story is not just about deforestation, it is about any misuse of the environment, and the environment is in need of help all around this globe!

*Marjorie Coughlan is PaperTigers' Associate Editor .

Posted February 2010

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