Mangoshi is a little girl unlike others. At the age of 7, she’s been charged with saving her mother’s life. It would be a daunting task for anyone to take on, but Mangoshi’s bravery and maturity shine through.

So begins the new children’s book, “Every Leaf a Hallelujah,” by Booker Prize-winning author Ben Okri.

The picture book, illustrated by Diana Ejaita, is Okri’s first foray into children’s literature. Okri’s work is vast, ranging from poetry and novels to political essays and short stories. His first novel, “Flowers and Shadows” was published in 1980 when he was 21. The Booker Prize was awarded to him in 1991 for his novel “The Famished Road,” the first in a trilogy about a boy named Azaro and his relationship with the spiritual world.

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In “Every Leaf a Hallelujah,” Okri draws deeply from his experience growing up in Lagos, Nigeria, where vast forests used to thrive. Over the years, Okri said he watched the forest recede, giving way to space for an ever-growing city.

“The forest around where we used to live was very thick, and it was a proper forest,” he explained. “As I grew up and went to school, I saw it getting thinner and thinner, and after a while you see gaps. Then I went away to school and came back once – and half the forest was gone.”

It’s a stark foreshadowing for the world. In 2018, the Nigerian Conservation Foundation said the country had lost 96% of its original forests to deforestation.

In Okri’s book, Mangoshi needs a magical flower that grows only in the deepest part of an African forest to save her mother. Readers accompany Mangoshi on her 94-page adventure as she looks for a magical flower and discovers an impending environmental catastrophe.

Mangoshi meets trees that come alive, including palms, irokos and baobabs. The trees ask Mangoshi to go on a journey. She complies and wraps her arms around a baobab tree.

“Suddenly, she was soaring through space,” the book continues. “She was soaring above the branches and she saw before her, spreading as far as it was possible to see, a universe of trees. They were all bright and magical.”

The trees teach the girl about how the forest is connected through a system of roots, but this also nurtures all of Earth’s ecosystem. She learns more about the age and diversity of life in the forest. The revelation happens when Mangoshi learns a group of men are ready to cut down another large swath of the forest. But if that area dies, so will the magical flower required to save Mangoshi’s mother.

“Saving her mother and saving the forest were linked,” Okri said. “The human race is sick right now … The sickness of the mother stands for our sickness.”

Okri’s daughter provided creative inspiration for “Every Leaf a Hallejuah.” The two take walks along a canal near their home in England, and Okri’s daughter will grab a stick to pull out pieces of discarded plastic. She loves trees and the idea of forests, he said, despite having never seen what he calls “a proper forest.”

“One day, I just began writing and wondering what is it going to take to turn something like this around,” Okri said. “We are allowing 8- and 9-year-olds to lead on this, and it’s a disgrace. They will be right to pass judgment on us in the years to come.”

The character Mangoshi, Okri said, “just turned up” because she had a job to do.

“First of all, she had to be a girl,” he said. “That’s partly my daughter, and partly the fact that I’ve found that girls are more conscious of this environmental thing.”

To be sure, young readers are engaged when it comes to environmental topics. Emily Gilbow, the assistant manager of the children’s department at Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena, said teachers and children have been asking for books on environmental issues, inspired by the climate crisis and the global popularity of 19-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg.

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“The non-fiction genres of children’s books are seeing a huge wave of books about how young people can make a difference in their community and make the world a better place,” Gilbow said. “There’s a culture of activism that is very prevalent in our society right now and kids are looking for stories that show that as well.”

A passionate environmentalist, Okri wrote the book with the goal of alerting as many people as possible to the dire circumstances of the planet. “Every Leaf a Hallelujah” was written for kids, but Okri is the first to admit he wants everyone, age 5 to 105, to read it.

“We cannot be here without trees. They make our survival possible,” he said. “They are copartners on this planet and this adventure of living.”