”Du behøver bare se dig lidt omkring”

Abstract

”You only need to look around and see”: Representation of Plants in Swedish and Norwegian Picturebooks from the Early 20th Century Plants are not only vital to all other life on earth; as parts of settings and narrative frames as well as actors, they also form a frequent literary motif, not least in children’s literature. This article explores how plants are represented in Swedish and Norwegian picturebooks published between 1900 and 1930. Inspired by the emerging field of critical plant studies, it presents a plant-oriented quantitative analysis of 102 books. By examining what plant species and types the corpus contains, and how these botanical motifs are portrayed, the article seeks to nuance tendencies identified in historical accounts of the period. While affirming that both the forest and cultural landscapes are central picturebook topoi in the early 20th century, the survey reveals a remarkably diverse flora. The plant-oriented examination shows that representations of both wild and cultivated plants hold ecocritical potential.

Keywords

• children’s literature history
• picturebooks,
• critical plant studies
• ecocriticism
• trees
• flowers