Journal | Lagoonscapes
Monographic journal issue | 4 | 2 | 2024
Research Article | Loss, Grief and Planetary Literacy in Informational Picturebooks for Children
Loss, Grief and Planetary Literacy in Informational Picturebooks for Children
Abstract
Death is an inevitable part of life with philosophical, cultural and religious dimensions and its problematic emerges differently in the contemporary era, since it is not only perceived as a fundamental aspect of human existence, but also as a consequence of human-made disasters, as well as an urgent environmental concern. Today literary and, in general, artistic narratives and expressions often explore death beyond human exceptionalism; ecocide; the triple planetary crisis; and the mourning for humanity’s doomed relationship to nature. Several contemporary authors, with the help of the illustrators, write ironic and horrific stories addressed to children that alter the cultural significance of loss and death and propound dark ecological storyworlds, in which the ecological problems as well as the more-than-human vulnerabilities, aspire to make young readers aware of the functions of the pale blue dot they live in and perceive it as the true public space. This article examines how do informational picturebooks for children approach life and death in a more ‘ecosophical’ manner, proving that the planetary turn has made available to literary studies, aiming to make young readers aware of how humans and nonhumans are fundamentally enmeshed in and negatively interdependent with one another.
Submitted: May 2, 2024 | Accepted: May 29, 2024 | Published Dec. 6, 2024 | Language: en
Keywords Planetary literacy • Death • Loss • Informational picturebooks • Dark ecology • Grief
Copyright © 2024 Rosy-Triantafyllia Angelaki. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/LGSP/2785-2709/2024/02/007
