Lynne Cherry was featured in the 1997 Maryland State Department of Education’s curriculum guide Maryland Women Leading the Way, assembled by the Maryland Women’s History Project, a precursor of the Maryland Women’s Heritage Center.
At the time, students learned that “Lynne Cherry is an award-winning author and illustrator of children’s books that teach about environmental issues such as destruction of rainforests and endangered animal species. She travels around the world to do research for her books and gives lectures in the United States and Canada about how teachers and students can make a difference in their communities. She wrote and illustrated her first “book” at age ten.”
Lynne’s described her work to students: “The most important thing about what I do is that I am, through my work, making the world a better place by educating children, teachers, and parents about helping to protect our environment
and preserve the natural world.”
2026 Update: From Lynne Cherry’s Website: Lynne Cherry is the author and/or illustrator of over thirty award-winning books for children. Her best-selling books such as The Great Kapok Tree and A River Ran Wild teach children to respect the Earth.
Lynne is the founder and director emeritus of the non-profit Young Voices for the Planet, a 501 (c)(3) tax exempt organization dedicated to helping the voices of environmentally-concerned young people be heard.
Lynne has produced 13 Young Voices for the Planet short films feature that youth success stories: California kids helping to get a ban on plastic bags; Florida students saving their school $53,000 in energy costs; An 11-year old German boy planting a million trees… Young people reducing the carbon footprint of their homes, schools and communities; a 10-year old testifying at city hall and helping shut down the coal-fired power plant that is causing her asthma; Three Massachusetts 11-year-olds who testify against a law prohibiting solar panels on town buildings–and the town then installs solar on all public buildings.