Book Awards

For this part of the assessment, I read Babb, McBurnie and Miller’s 2018 article, ‘Tracking the environment in Australian children’s literature: the Children’s Book Council of Australia Picture Book of the Year Awards 1955-2014’. 

The authors analysed all of the titles shortlisted between 1955 and 2014 for the Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) Picture Book of the Year Award. They aimed to discover how depictions of nature, including environmental landscapes and animals and environmental themes and representations of Australia, changed over time.

Key Findings

• Depictions of ‘built’ environments in shortlisted children’s picture books increased while ‘natural’ environments decreased
• Featured animals were traditionally “iconic Australian species” but have become more diverse (p. 725)
• Pest species are a relatively recent introduction and are uniformly characterised as antagonists
• Domestic animals, including pets, have come to be depicted at the same frequency as wild animals and “show greater agency and have larger roles narratively” (p. 725)

What Does This Mean?

• Since literature ‘reflects the society in which it is created’ (p. 716), we can see how depictions of nature in popular Australian children’s books have changed over sixty years and how this might affect young readers. The dominance of ‘built’ environments over ‘natural’ environments reflects the global population’s shift to urban and suburban locales. Children are less exposed to nature, even though contact with nature encourages “pro-environmental behaviours and attitudes” (p. 716). Instead of direct natural experiences, children may learn through reading
• Since the CBCA is a leading authority on Australian children’s literature, its shortlisted titles attract library, school and bookseller attention who then acquire these books for their collection (p. 717). Many children are subsequently exposed to these titles and their environmental themes and messages since they have the prestige of being shortlisted for the Picture Book of the Year Award. 
• The authors note that environmental literature “fosters a value of the natural world and empathetic connections with its non-human inhabitants” (p. 716). Therefore, these books have a didactic purpose in informing children about the world and its inhabitants, as well as inspiring ‘eco-citizenship’ (p. 728)

Jeannie Baker, n.d.a

What Have I Learned?

• This article made me think about the profound impact environmentalist books had on me when I was a child, such as Jeannie Baker’s Where the Forest Meets the Sea and Window and Dr Seuss’s The Lorax. Picture books are a powerful means of conveying ecological concepts and issues to children (and even the adults reading them aloud). As Babb, McBurnie and Miller (2018) suggest, “environmental picture books might lay a foundation of deep personal connections with nature in students” (p. 727). I might not have encountered books like Baker’s had they not won the CBCA Picture Book of the Year Award in 1988 and 1992, respectively (Baker, n.d.a; Baker, n.d.b) and therefore drawn the attention of booksellers and librarians. 

Jeannie Baker, n.d.b

• Before reading this article, I had not realised how influential organisations like the Children’s Book Council of Australia were on the sale and acquisition of certain books. I learned the CBCA Awards also help support and promote authors and illustrators based on the company’s reputation (The Children’s Book Council of Australia, n.d.). 

Reference List

Babb, Y. M., McBurnie, J. & Miller, K. K. (2018). Tracking the environment in Australian children’s literature: the Children’s Book Council of Australia Picture Book of the Year Awards 1955-2014. Environmental Education Research, 24(5), 716-730. 

https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2017.1326020

Baker, J. (n.d.a.) Where the forest meets the sea. https://www.jeanniebaker.com/book/where-the-forest-meets-the-sea/

Baker, J. (n.d.b.) Window. https://www.jeanniebaker.com/book/window/

The Children’s Book Council of Australia. (n.d.) About the CBCA Book of the Year Awards. https://www.cbca.org.au/about-the-awards