2023 Winners Of Environmental Award Named By Evanston Public Library

EVANSTON, IL — In a third year of its annual environmental book award, the Evanston Public Library has named joint winners.

Library staffers launched the Blueberry Awards in 2021 because no other American Library Association award exclusively honored nature books that promote climate stewardship, according to library officials.

“I am so proud of our EPL staff for their initiative in creating this award and in celebrating authors that so beautifully and eloquently illustrate the importance of this critical topic,” Assistant Director Heather Norborg said in a statement after the winners were announced Thursday at the Robert Crown Community Center.

The 2023 joint winners of the third annual Blueberry Awards are: "How to Bird" by Rasha Hamid and "The Gift of Mnoomin/Mnoomin Maan'gowing," by Brittany Luby and translated into Ojibwe by Mary Ann Corbiere.

In addition to this year's joint winners, 29 other books were given honor awards and four were given changemaker awards.

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Hamid said she was excited to receive the honor.

“As a parent and educator, I have spent decades looking for books that reflect the extraordinary diversity of our earth and also that center Black and brown children in urban communities," Hamid said. "How to Bird was inspired by the dream that our public greenspaces can be safe and welcoming for everyone, that joyful, mindful activities like birding are available to all of us, wherever we live and whoever we are."

Luby thanked the award committee and said she hoped the book would remind readers of their connection to the enviornment.

"When we plant a seed, we can provide food and habitat to a diversity of species, plant and animal relatives who in turn nurture us. I hope you also find a sense of intergenerational love and interspecies care through the pages because that is the gift that the elders gave me when they first invited me into the fields, when they introduced me to [the native wild rice] mnoomin."

The 2021, inaugural Blueberry Award winner was "How to Find a Fox" by Kate Gardner, with photography by Ossi Saarinen.

For 2022, the Blueberry Award was awarded to "Listen to the Language of the Trees: A Story of How Trees Communicate Underground" by Tera Kelley, illustrated by Marie Hermansson.

More information about the Blueberrys — a take on the prestigious "Newberry Awards" for children's literature — is available from the EPL website, including more details about past honorees and instructions on submitting nominees for next year's awards.

“The Evanston Public Library is proud to support innovative programs and services that connect people of all ages to their environment and inspire them to create change," said Norborg, the library's assistant director, "and my hope is that the reach and impact of the Blueberry Awards will continue to expand.”