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.

Keywords

• Dark ecology. Death. Grief. Informational picturebooks. Loss. Planetary literacy