Talking lions, philosophical bears, very hungry caterpillars, wise spiders, altruistic trees, companionable moles, urbane elephants: this is the magnificent menagerie that delights our children at bedtime. Within the entertaining pages of many children’s books, however, also lie profound teachings about the natural world that can help children develop an educated and engaged appreciation of the dynamic environment they inhabit. In Beasts at Bedtime, scientist (and father) Liam Heneghan examines the environmental underpinnings of children’s stories. From Beatrix Potter to Harry Potter, Heneghan unearths the universal insights into our inextricable relationship with nature that underlie so many classic children’s stories. Some of the largest environmental challenges in coming years—from climate instability, the extinction crisis, freshwater depletion, and deforestation—are likely to become even more severe as this generation of children grows up. Though today’s young readers will bear the brunt of these environmental calamities, they will also be able to contribute to environmental solutions if prepared properly. And all it takes is an attentive eye: Heneghan shows how the nature curriculum is already embedded in bedtime stories, from the earliest board books like The Rainbow Fish to contemporary young adult classics like The Hunger Games. Beasts at Bedtime is an awakening to the vital environmental education children’s stories can provide—from the misadventures of The Runaway Bunny to more overt tales like The Lorax. Heneghan serves as our guide, drawing richly upon his own adolescent and parental experiences, as well as his travels in landscapes both experienced and imagined. Organized into thematic sections, the work winds its way through literary forests, colorful characters, and global environments. This book enthralls as it engages. Heneghan as a guide is as charming as he is insightful, showing how kids (and adults) can start to experience the natural world in incredible ways from the comfort of their own rooms. Beasts at Bedtime will help parents, teachers, and guardians extend those cozy times curled up together with a good book into a lifetime of caring for our planet.
Liam Heneghan is professor of environmental science and studies at DePaul University. He is a Dubliner, an occasional poet, a tin whistle player, and a father of two grown children to whom he read every night of their early years.
Table of Contents
Introduction Section One: On Reading The Existential Princess: A Fairy Tale 1 Beasts at Bedtime: Reading about Nature with Children 2 Doctor Dolittle and the Question of Reading Section Two: Pastoral Stories Topophilia 3 The Pastoral Promise: And They All Lived Happily Ever After 4 The Ecology of Pooh 5 Peter Rabbit’s Brutal Paradise 6 In the Garden of Earthly Delights 7 Beyond the Pool of Darkness: The Pastoral Roots of Irish Stories Section Three: Wilderness Stories Lost in the Popo Agie Wilderness 8 On the Mallard 9 Where the Wild Things Always Were 10 Wild and Grimm Fairy Tales: Wilderness on the Margins 11 “Gollumgate”: Tolkien and Ireland 12 “I Am in Fact a Hobbit”: Tolkien as Environmentalist 13 The Tin Woodman’s Path of Carnage through the Land of Oz 14 Hunger and Thirst in Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games Section Four: Children on Wild Islands Old Tom’s Island 15 The Why and the What of Islands 16 Archmage Ged, Merlin, and Harry Potter and the Training of Wizards and Witches 17 Is L. T. Meade the Real Author of Enid Blyton’s Famous Five? 18 Robinson Crusoe: Now Here’s a Cannibalism Tale for Every Child 19 On Isles Benevolent; on Isles Malevolent Section Five: Urban Stories The Urban Wild 20 The Urban to Rural Gradient of Children’s Stories: The Happy Prince 21 Antipathy to Urban Life in Nursery Rhymes 22 Urban Decay: R. Crumb in the Nursery 23 The Escape Artist: Calvin and Hobbes and the Suburban Idyll 24 Babar: Elephant and Urban Adapter Section Six: Learning to Care And the World Hummed Back 25 Caring for the Rose: Environmental Literacy and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince 26 What Then Should We Do? The Lorax in the Twenty-First Century Section Seven: Good Night, Sleep Tight In the Tot Lot 27 Bookend Conversations Acknowledgments Notes Index
