This week, television host Kelly Clarkson featured SOMA’s own Audrey Noguera, Columbia High School junior class president and the author of a new children’s book that seeks to inspire children of color to discover the beauty and magic of national parks. Audrey shared how moving from Brooklyn to South Orange inspired her to write “Find Your Forest” with her father Taylor Margis-Noguera. “Find Your Forest,” was published by Macmillan in October. The book is illustrated by Abigail Gross.
Last fall, Noguera explained to Village Green that she was “inspired by long walks in the South Mountain Reservation” to write the book and “encourage children and families of all backgrounds to get outside and explore their local parks and forests, deepen their love for nature, and take restorative, informative, and fun walks in the woods.”
Noguera told Clarkson that she was also spurred to write the book when she learned about the “nature gap” — whereby “only about 10% of national park visitors are people of color. As a Latina myself, this really shocked me.”
Clarkson also announced that Pilot Pen was awarding Noguera $1,000 for inspiring kids to embrace the great outdoors.
