Navigating Loss: Examining Representations of Climate-Change-Driven Human Displacement in Books for Young Children

This article describes how picturebooks written in English, and for young children, address human displacement and migration driven by climate change. Undergirded by the concepts of imaginative engagement and ecocriticism, the authors examine how these books represent the lived experiences of environmental migrants. Across the texts, themes of loss and resilience, the strength of culture and community, and xenophobia transformed to allyship are prominent. Several books also disrupt anthropocentric views of nature in creative and diverse ways. The article concludes with a discussion of the challenges related to procuring and reading these books, the significance of how climate-change-driven displacement is portrayed, and the implications this has for young children's understanding of this issue.