When Martin Luther King received the Nobel Peace Prize, he was 35 and had been a civil-rights activist for less than a decade. Of course he wasn’t a child, but his life was very short.
Not to be ghoulish, but Malala Yousafzai nearly died when she was shot by Taliban assassins. Since Nobel Prizes cannot be awarded posthumously, the Nobel Committee may be thinking that if the honoree is actually contributing to world peace, it’s best to present the award while he or she is still alive to accept it.