Read-alouds and picture books are a vital component of early years education. If we estimate that each teacher reads at least one read-aloud a day, children can listen to almost 200 books per school year, and that is just books that are read aloud in class. Many teachers, myself included, choose books for many reasons. Perhaps it fits with a particular curricular topic, it addresses social justice issues, it is a student or classroom favourite, or just because it is silly and fun. After the publication of The Lorax in 1971 and following the creation of the National Environmental Act in the United States in 1990, publishers responded by mass-producing a wide range of children’s environmental books (Echterling, 2016). These books primarily focused on the individual acts of children and families that they can do within their individual sphere to ‘save the world.’
Children’s environmental texts help “young people become the responsible and empathetic adults of tomorrow by positioning readers as eco citizens… dedicated to sustainable development in the local sphere and the global responsibility” (Massey & Bradford, 2011). If this is the goal of children’s eco-literature, we need to ask ourselves, as educators, if the literature supports children in making these changes in their world. Massey, Bradford, and Echterling argue that there is a difference between the mass-produced environmental texts to the texts that promote ecocitizenship.
Working on this article, I typed in ‘children’s environmental books’ into our school library. Many of the texts focus almost solely on individual environmental acts and small lifestyle changes. It is not to say that individual actions don’t matter, as our actions matter. As when we have many people making small changes in their lives, this impacts our community and our world. Mulligan (2018) cites the work of Stuart Hill, who states that “no individual action should be dismissed as being insignificant, Hill has argued, as long as it is part of a broader action plan” (p. 160). Unfortunately, many of the children’s books within our school library do not go any further. The texts over-simplify the environmental crisis and do not show the connections between the damage to our environment and systematic societal problems.
Some of the books in Massey & Bradford and the Echterling articles are within our school, and I will be focusing on those texts. Many of the books, such as Let’s Celebrate Earth Day (2015), Ten Things I Can do to Help my World (2012), as well as many others, tend to focus solely on the individual actions of people to help the earth and that we should be doing it so that we can continue to exist as we have always existed. These environmental texts are anthropocentric and have all the actions initiated and controlled by humans instead of seeing the world as interconnected. Of course, the responsibility does fall to us humans, but many of the texts reviewed only put humans at the centre. These texts point out ways that children and households can stop climate change, such as turning off the water when brushing their teeth, recycling, or buying second-hand. Although these are important
efforts, they do little to encourage active citizenship and engagement. These “green children’s books tend to oversimply and depoliticize ecological crisis and activist, presenting problems such as climate change…as easily managed by individual actions” (Echterling, 2016). In only a handful of books that were previewed, which tend to be for much older students, is the message that climate change is a problem with many intersectional lenses such as class, gender, social economics, and racial and national inequalities.
Fantastic kid-friendly way of explaining intersectionality (Learning for Justice, 2016)
Another text examined was The Magic School Bus and the Climate Challenge. As much as I hate to throw the ‘Frizz under the bus,’ she misses the mark, as although there is lots of accurate scientific information, there are many statements that do not consider the broader causes of our climate crisis. Like so many others that I examined, I also noticed that this text was primarily white. This is also true for the authors of many of these green texts. The illustrations in The Magic School Bus and many other texts also had primarily white children, unless it was to share the message that we all have a responsibility to make a difference around the world. This message can be damaging. For example, Ms. Frizzle tells the students that “our only chance to save the earth is to work together – every person, every city, every country…We all need to take care of our earth” (Cole & Degen, 2011). These types of statements completely negate the issues of power and privilege of individuals, corporations, and nations. It reinforces the idea that all people can make these changes when not all people can for various reasons.
As Echterling points out, it is primarily passive activism that is encouraged, and environmentalism “is reduced to primarily to individual acts, isolated issues, and reconciled with then neoliberal values that are closely aligned with individualism (2016). Thankfully ‘The Frizz” does take it a step further than some other texts and does encourage children to voice their concerns through writing letters to the government, although this is still an individual act.
When the environmental texts show IBPOC people, they are often depicted as the singular hero or need to be saved from their destructive ways. For example, Echterling looks at various books about Maathai, who planted trees in Kenya. In Wangari’s Trees of Peace (2018), she is shown as the only woman who is planting, not the efforts of many women within the Green Belt Movement, where she was one of the leaders. In Planting the Trees of Kenya, the author falsely misrepresents Maathai by having her accuse her people of destroying the forests saying that the people of Kenya “had forgotten to care for the land that had fed them” (Nivola, 2008). This negates the voice of Maathai, who tells of the situation in her memoir Unbowed (2008), where she explicitly links colonial deforestation and development and the government and patriarchal oppression that the communities experienced. This was a theme that was seen in other books as well. I perused the library and found that the authors of these green books often shared stories of heroes who came to save endangered animals, not since these animals were often endangered because of overt capitalism and colonization.
Children’s environmental and ecocritical literature has a broad audience. Although it is essential to teach children that individual actions matter, it is also necessary to present this and that systematic problems also need to be addressed. The article How to Save the World and Other Lessons from Children’s Environmental Literature article names some resources to consider. The listed books move beyond individual actions to a focus on eco-justice. For example, our Earth: How Kids are Saving the Planet (2010) encourages practicing pester power. A text that our grade 3-4 multiage teachers say raises awareness while giving the power to the students (personal communication, May 27, 2022). The picture book about Wangari Maathai called Seeds of Change (2011) is a book that looks at the diverse issues such as corruption, sexism, and the exploitation of the community while celebrating the power of the rural women who made a difference.
I also think it is important not to throw the preverbal baby out with the bath water. Although many of our current texts tend to only focus on individual acts, this is a piece of how to address our climate crisis, and books are a way to show this importance. Perhaps though, as educators, we can look at these books, even if they are flawed, as a piece of the puzzle and one that we can help fill in through our direct instruction and sharing of other social justice issues that may be at play. So that is where I will be going. I will look through my own ”green text” and see where the gaps are and what is missing… and I am looking forward to sharing this with you soon.
References
Cole, J., Adams, P., & Morris, C. (2011). The magic school bus: The climate challenge. Scholastic.
DeRubertis, B. (2015). Let's celebrate Earth Day. Kane Press.
Echterling, C. (2016). How to save the world and other lessons from Children’s Environmental Literature. Children's Literature in Education, 47(4), 283–299. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10583-016-9290-6
EDU Kid Space. (2021, January 5). The magic school bus and the climate challenge, by
Joanna Cole and Bruce Degan. YouTube. Retrieved June 2, 2022, from https://youtu.be/ZEiv-sG174Q
Johnson, J. C., & Sadler, S. L. (2011). Seeds of Change: Wangari's gift to the world. Lee & Low.
Learning for Justice. (2016, May 18). Intersectionality 101. YouTube. Retrieved June 2, 2022, from https://youtu.be/w6dnj2IyYjE
Maathai, W. (2008). Unbowed: My autobiography. Arrow.
Massey, G., & Bradford, C. (2011). Children as Ecocitizens: Ecocriticism and environmental texts. Contemporary Children’s Literature and Film, 109–126. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-230-34530-0_7
Mulligan, M. (2018). An introduction to sustainability: Environmental, social, and personal perspectives. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.
Nivola, C. A. (2008). Planting the Trees of Kenya: The story of Wangari Maathai. Frances Foster Books.
Walsh, M. (2012). 10 Things I can do to help my world. Candlewick Press.
Wangari Maathai: Seeds of change: Audiobook. YouTube. (2020, February 28). Retrieved June 2, 2022, from https://youtu.be/NWFdmOaDTxE
Wilson, J. (2010). Our earth: How kids are saving the planet. Second Story Press.
Winter, J. (2018). Wangari's trees of peace: A true story from Africa. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.