Environmentalism In Children Literature Essay

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Molly Gutelius
ENG 218
Professor Peterson
4/29/2014
Annotated Bibliography Final Project
Environmentalism in Children’s Literature
My subject for the final project is environmentalism in children’s literature. I was very interested in researching this topic because I am an environmental science major, and have never really thought about it as a topic in children’s books. Going into this project I did not know what to expect, whether I would find a lot of options, or if it would be somewhat difficult to find. The environment, as it turns out, is a fairly popular topic found in children’s literature. I was able to find a wide range of books that discussed the environment in several different contexts. There was a picture book, the fictional whimsical Dr. Seuss book, the non-fiction historically accurate book, and the typical fiction young adult/juvenile novel. I decided on this wide range of books to give a better synopsis of what can be found in children’s literature.
I think that learning about the environment starting at a young age gives children the chance to discover and critically evaluate the world they live in. This is an important thing to teach children early on, which I believe is becoming a more prevalent topic at younger ages. I know I did not read most of the books I found for this project until now. I did not really have a strong environmental introduction until I reached high school which is another reason I picked this topic. Imagine if these books have an impact on children, and that these children want to start making small changes in their own homes and neighborhoods. I realize that this can be a hard thing for children to do, which is why I think it is so important for children to learn about from their pare...

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...article is relatable to my topic as well, especially because one of my books I picked was a picture/wordless book. The goal of this article was discuss two different picture books and their usefulness even without words. These types of books can be very powerful; they represent a lot of different environmental impacts all simply seen from a picture. The authors state “the absence of text may often imply a lower quality, lack of interest or, in some cases, a lack of a coherent narrative.” The authors go on to discuss how this is not the case in their two picture books chosen for the article. I think this also goes for the book I picked entitled Window (Baker). A lot of the power in a picture book deals with the quality of illustrations and imagery which I think is very well done in Baker’s book. Eco-literacy as well as other subjects can be taught even without words.

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