If you ask author and artist Lynne Cherry where she grew up she'll tell you, "The woods."

It was there she got to know the trees, plants and critters that have lived on in her memory, writing and art to this day. They survive even though the woods of her childhood, and all the life they held, have long since been cut down, bulldozed under or paved over by development.

Today, Cherry uses her books, illustrations and, some say, every waking moment to educate people-particularly young people-about the preciousness of plants, animals and habitats all over the world. Her children's book, "The Kapok Tree: A Tale of the Amazon Rain Forest", has sold nearly half a million copies. It's the fable of a man with an axe who learns the value of a rain forest tree from the animals and other living things who rely on it. Another book of hers, "A River Ran Wild: an Environmental History", tells the story of one great river, and in so doing tells the story of all rivers and the life they support.

Cherry is an environmentalist in deed as well as word. She lives simply and treads so softly on the environment that only her illustrations and books leave an imprint. She refuses to use throw-away items, shop only in thrift stores and grows her own food on her organically-certified farm.

Because she believes kids need to understand environmental issues, Cherry founded the Center for Children's Environmental Literature in 1992. The center's newsletter "Nature's Choice" encourages parents and teachers to explore environmental topics and, like Cherry's books, makes even the most complex issues easier to understand an enjoyable to read.

Cherry's not afraid to stand up to the big guys if she feels her cause is just. She took on the world's largest retailer in her yet-to-be-published book "Keeping Wal-Mart out". She spoke passionately to the Connecticut Legislature about the transportation of nuclear waste. And she even challenged the Episcopal church over a 515-acre tract of old-growth trees the church considered selling to a developer.

With the help of other environmentally concerned authors Cherry has put pressure on book publishers to use recycled and chlorine-free paper, and she continues to tour the world to speak on behalf of the environment.

Much of what Cherry does, she does without pay. She does it for the songbirds of Maryland, the boa constrictors of Brazil, the rivers of new Hampshire and the forests of the Pacific Northwest. No matter where she roams, Lynne Cherry never gets too far from the woods.