SANTA MONICA—On Thursday, September 24, the Santa Monica Public Library will celebrate the ninth annual Green Prize Award for Sustainable Literature by hosting a discussion panel. The program is called “Paul & Anna Cummins: A Father and Daughter in Conversation,” and it will be held at the MLK Jr. Auditorium in the Main Library, 601 Santa Monica Blvd. at 7 p.m.
Paul Cummins is a Santa Monica author and lead founder of Crossroads Schools. His daughter, Anna Cummins, is the co-founder and executive director of The 5 Gyres Institute. Their panel will consist of a discussion of how we can envision ourselves as leaders of social justice.
The sponsors of the Green Prize Award are the Santa Monica Public Library and the City of Santa Monica’s Office of Sustainability and the Environment. The award encourages “authors, illustrators, and publishers who produce quality books for adults and young people that make significant contributions to support the ideas of, and broaden public awareness of sustainability.” Sustainability, according to the City of Santa Monica’s Sustainable City Plan is defined as “meeting current needs-environmental, economic, and social – without compromising the ability of future generations to do the same.”
Criteria for submissions for the award include that the book be published in the USA in the previous calendar year from when it will be submitted and that titles should reflect basic sustainability criteria. After submission, a panel of librarians, teachers and local authorities then judges the books.
Past winners of the award have included: Walkable City by Jeff Speck (2012); The Green Mother Goose by Jan Peck (2011); and Earth Then and Now by Fred Pierce (2010).
This year, nine titles were awarded, some of which include: Our Green Earth Series by Anne Flounders, Branching Out: how Trees Are Part of our World by Joan Marie Galat, and War of the Whales: A True Story by Joshua Horowits.
The event is free for the public to attend.
