Hero for the Hungry

Hero for the Hungry: The Life and Work of Norman Borlaug
by Peggy Thomas (Author) and Sam Kalda (Illustrator)
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Booktalk: Can a quiet Iowa farm boy grow up to change the world? Norman Ernest Borlaug did.

Born in 1914, raised on a small farm, and educated in a one-room schoolhouse, Norman Borlaug learned to work hard and excelled in sports, and later studied forestry in college, eventually becoming a plant scientist.

Even from a young age, Norman Borlaug dedicated his life’s work to ending world hunger. Working in obscurity in the wheat fields of Mexico in the 50s and 60s, Norm and his team developed disease-resistant plants, and when widespread famine threatened India and Pakistan, Norm worked alongside poor farmers, battled bureaucracy, and fearlessly stood up to heads of state to save millions of lives from mass starvation.

Often called the “Father of the Green Revolution,” Norm helped lay the groundwork for agricultural technological advances that alleviated world hunger, and he went on to win the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1970. He was a true hero for the hungry.

Snippet: The car stops. Norm’s wife steps out. Alarm bells go off in Norm’s head. Margaret looks flustered, which isn’t like her at all.

Norm hurries down the row to the end of the ditch. “What’s wrong?” he calls out. Has one of the children been in an accident? Is his mother or father sick? It has to be something urgent for Margaret to drive all the way out here from Mexico City.

Margaret shakes her head and hollers, “Norman, you’ve won the Nobel Peace Prize.”

Now it’s Norm’s turn to shake his head. “No. No,” he says calmly. “That can’t be, Margaret. Someone’s pulling your leg.”

Nonfiction Monday