Earth Lamentations of a Twelve-Year-Old - Ai Hirata, "Secrets of the Earth" and Voices of the Environment, 1995

Earth Lamentations of a Twelve-Year-Old - Ai Hirata, "Secrets of the Earth" and Voices of the Environment, 1995

In the 1990s, Japan was reeling from the collapse of its bubble economy, and the values that made expansion and consumption virtuous were quietly beginning to be questioned. In the midst of this time, a young girl quietly picked up a brush and began to explore the possibilities of a recycling-oriented society and consideration for the global environment. Ai Hirata, a sixth grader in Shimane Prefecture, Japan. The picture book she drew, "Secrets of the Earth," was a simple but earnest prayer for the earth, uttered from her sickbed.

Acid rain, depletion of the ozone layer, ocean pollution. Told from the perspective of a 12-year-old, the Earth's crisis, though illustrated with diagrams and cartoons, had the power to deeply move the reader's heart. It took her two months to complete this picture book as her life was coming to an end, and after her death, only 50 copies were self-published by her parents at their own expense. However, the pure and straightforward gaze of the author quietly spread among people, and in 1993 she was awarded the "Global 500 Award" by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

Subsequently translated into English, French, Chinese, Korean, and Arabic, "Secrets of the Earth" is now in the hands of children around the world. At a time when environmental education was finally on the threshold of institutionalization, Aiken's work conveyed the message that "environmental problems do not belong to anyone else," more vividly than the words of an expert.

It was a symbol of hope that sprouted with the end of consumption. The image of the earth that the girl painted with the light of her life remains the purest environmental message born at the end of the 20th century.