Book Award for Writer/Artist With Roots in Kensington and El Cerrito

Laura Cunningham, who grew up in Kensington and went to middle and high school in El Cerrito, has won a gold medal in the annual California Book Awards for her illustrated book about California's long-lost landscapes.

The book, A State of Change: Forgotten Landscapes of California, won the top honor in the Californiana category of the 80-year-old book prize competition sponsored by the Commonwealth Club. The club announced this year's winners in eight categories Thursday.

Cunningham, who wrote and illustrated the book, spent more time researching the book in El Cerrito than in any other place, she told El Cerrito Patch in .

Featured prominently in the book is her painting depicting what El Cerrito Plaza might have looked like 500 years ago, with grizzlies eating acorns beneath an oak tree. The work includes other references to El Cerrito and nearby areas as well, such as a painting showing a swath of the Bay Area seen from Kensington.

Cunningham, who lives in the Nevada desert 10 miles outside of California, attended and schools and graduated from in 1985. She graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in paleontology in 1990 and began working as a wildlife biologist.

The book, published by Berkeley's independent, nonprofit Heyday Books, includes both scientific research and personal narrative.

An awards ceremony for this year's winners of the California Book Awards will be held at the Commonwealth Club on June 2.