'From the forests of the tales of the Brothers’ Grimm to Enid Blyton’s The Faraway Tree, from the flowers of Cicely May Barker’s fairies to the treehouse in Andy Griffith and Terry Denton’s popular 13 Story Treehouse series, trees and other plants have been enduring features of stories for children and young adults. Plants act as gateways to other worlds, as liminal spaces, as markers of permanence and change, and as metonyms of childhood and adolescence. This anthology is the first compilation devoted entirely to analysis of the representation of plants in children’s and young adult literatures, reflecting the recent surge of interest in cultural plant studies within the Environmental Humanities.
'Mapping out and presenting an internationally inclusive view of plant representation in texts for children and young adults, the volume includes contributions examining European, American, Australian and Asian literatures and contributes to the research fields of ecocriticism, critical plant studies and the study of children’s and young adult literatures.' (Publication summary)
Preface
Part I: Botanical Fascinations
Chapter 1 A Relational Poetics of Plant-Human Interactions: Contrasting the Picturebooks of Cicely Mary Barker and Elsa Beskow Terri Doughty
Chapter 2 Stamens and Pistils in the Same Flower: Queer Performativity of Plants in Finnish Fairy Tale "Pessi ja Illusia" Katri Aholainen
Chapter 3 Aristotle on Plants: Life, Communion and Wonder Hallvard Fossheim
Part II: Plants in Folklore and Fantasy
Chapter 4 Come into the Garden Alice: Rude Flowers, Dream-Rushes, Aphasic Woods and Other Plants in Lewis Carroll’s Nonsense Worlds Francesca Arnavas
Chapter 5 Fern Blossom and Lilibala: Magical Plants in Serbian Children’s Fantasy Tijana Tropin and Ivana Mijić Nemet
Chapter 6 Vegetal Magic: Agnieszka’s Journey to the Understanding of the Vegetal Other in Naomi Novik’s Uprooted Mónika Rusvai
Part III: Arboreal Embraces
Chapter 7 Arboreal and Maternal Desires: Trees and Mothers in recent Australian Middle-Grade Fiction Melanie Duckworth
Chapter 8 Arboreal Entanglements: Childrenforest and Deforestation in Ecopoetry by Children Justyna Deszcz-Tryhubczak and Charlotte van Bergen
Chapter 9 "I felt like a tree lost in a storm"—The process of entangled knowing, becoming and doing in Beatrice Alemagna’s picturebook Un grande giorno di niente (2016) Nina Goga
Chapter 10 From Chamomiles to Oaks: Agency and Cultivation of Self-Awareness Alida Mayne-Nicholls and Andrea Casals Hill
Part IV: Plant Agency and Activism
Chapter 11 Vegetal Individuals and Plant Agency in Twenty-First Century Children’s Literature Anja Höing
Chapter 12 Vegetable Violence: The Agency, Personhood and Rhetorical Role of Vegetables in Andy Griffiths’ and Terry Denton’s The 52-Storey Treehouse Lykke Guanio-Uluru
Chapter 13 The Vegetal Modality of Resistance in Children’s Books by/for Indigenous Peoples in the Philippines Jose Monfred C. Sy
'Fundamental problems such as global warming, the progressive exploitation of resources, and the disrupted ecological balance have inevitably directed attention increasingly to nature and the environment. The prevailing anthropocentric view of the world, in which humans are the measure of all things, has been shaken for a long time. This also affects the sciences, not least the humanities. Therefore, it is appropriate and an expression of our times that the publishing house Routledge has begun a new, promising scholarly series entitled "Perspectives on the Non-Human in Literature and Culture", which is launched by the present volume.' (Introduction)
'Fundamental problems such as global warming, the progressive exploitation of resources, and the disrupted ecological balance have inevitably directed attention increasingly to nature and the environment. The prevailing anthropocentric view of the world, in which humans are the measure of all things, has been shaken for a long time. This also affects the sciences, not least the humanities. Therefore, it is appropriate and an expression of our times that the publishing house Routledge has begun a new, promising scholarly series entitled "Perspectives on the Non-Human in Literature and Culture", which is launched by the present volume.' (Introduction)
