Has the climate crisis reached children's literature? | Israel today

The British were there, apparently, before everyone else.

As early as the 1960s, a series of children's books written by Elizabeth Bresford was published there and almost immediately became a television hit, starring "The Wombles".

The fictional, pointed-nosed furry creatures lived in secret burrows underground, collecting garbage scattered by humans and recycling it in various creative ways, taking care not to be discovered.

Wembbles had a motto: "Use good garbage for good."

And unsurprisingly, in recent years they have been recalled there, in the United Kingdom, in the Wemblabs - and their album of songs, all of which marched in the song charts in the seventies, has been reprinted and is being played and revived.

Here, too, it seems, parents, educators, writers, and publishers have realized that in order to effectively address serious ecological problems, it is not enough to let experts speak or recruit activists, and it is worth ensuring that the younger generation grows fully aware of the issue.

In the last three years, many children's books have been published in Hebrew that deal directly with the climate crisis, the environment, recycling and nature conservation, so much so that when these young readers encounter future classic literature that is not careful not to step on ants, they are in for a big surprise.

For example, Tamar Weiss-Gabay's book, "Just an Empty Field," (Kinneret), tries to change the point of view of the children, to reveal to them what the adults do not tell: that nature is not so far away, and ours, humans, have the ability, And more importantly - all the reasons to want to keep it.

In her book, the neighborhood children discover a shortcut to their kindergarten, which passes through a deserted field.

"What fun," they think.

'You can pave a path in the middle of the field, because there's nothing in it.

Only thorns and stones and dirt. '

A closer look reveals how wrong they were: in this field there is a mantis, squirrel, chrysanthemum, butterflies, turtle, chameleon, bees, acorns and more and more plants and birds.

Weiss-Gabay, who grew up in a house with a yard in the days when there were still fields and orchards in Ramat Gan, remembers that she really liked to wander and look.

"Life has moved away from that," she says, "but through my children I're interested again and also troubled by the fact that so many animals and plants are disappearing and becoming extinct or endangered.

From the height of adults 'eyes there really is nothing in such fields, but children can see that they are not alone, that other creatures were here before them and we must take them into account.'

Nurit Zarchi also presents a very similar point of view in her book, The High House and the Low House (Poalim Library).

The girl, the heroine of the book, leaves the high house with her mother because "it is a bit broken and until we fix it we will go to the low house."

There, in the yard, she is astonished to find that she does not see the cars driving on the road and complains "there is nothing here," but that her mother tells her to take a good look, and she discovers a completely different urban world than the one she knew, with hedgehogs, foxes, jackals, jackals and snails.

When it's time for her to return to the prestigious tower, she expresses real distress: 'I can not ... I am now responsible for all the animals in the yard.

I need to take care of them.

Who will give them food if I'm not here? '

Zarhi, like Weiss, emphasizes the immediate, personal connection that is created between the children and the urban nature, which occupies an important place in their lives, enriches and brings with it both joy and enthusiasm as well as great responsibility.

Dr. Shay Rodin, a researcher of children's literature: "Most of children's literature is an ally of capitalism. "For example, that you can buy less, that you can create something on the spot."

Many of the children's books on the environment that are published in Israel are translated, and they deal with the subject by ostensibly academic means: "A World Full of Plastic" by the esteemed British author and illustrator Neil Layton (Meter), for example, presents - accompanied by very amusing illustrations - the history of plastic, its discovery. Its production and important place in the industry, and slowly also the problems it creates (the fact that it does not decompose quickly, the pollution of the oceans with tiny plastic particles, etc.) and the possible solutions that children can also adopt.

In The World Under Our Feet, by Charlotte Gillian and Yuval Sommer (Schocken), a book built like a giant accordion, the pages unfolding layer by layer the plants, creatures, archaeological remains, minerals, fossils and everything else in the earth, including sewer pipes and power cables .

During the journey, as if by accident, the young readers learn how all of these are intertwined and interdependent.

The subtitle of "The Anatomy of Nature," a book by Julia Rothman and John Nikresh (Zeltner) is "Anything Curious in the Natural World" —and it does not disappoint.

This kid-friendly lexicon contains everything from volcanoes to snowflakes, bats to lakes, from star systems to rules for collecting edible plants.

Apart from the fact that in the chapter "Animals in the Neighborhood" the book's Americanism is revealed, because it includes a groundhog, a common raccoon, an opossum and other animals that are not found in the neighborhoods of the country.

These books are especially spectacular.

They are made with attention, their illustrations are wonderful and the texts are clear, and although they try to mobilize young readers for activism or at least for caring, they do so without reprimands or sermons.

Side niche.

Shai Rodin // Photo: Maayan Krisi,

Dr. Shay Rodin, a researcher in children's literature and a lecturer at the Gordon Academic College of Education in Haifa, believes that the right way to reach readers' hearts is through real literature, and not through guides and lexicons.

The guides are beautiful, he says, but they are not literature, and they have no ability to touch readers as literature is capable of touching.

"Sustainability and ecology is a side niche in our children's literature," he says, "just as it is a side niche in Israeli society.

Books that teach recycling or not soiling in nature have no literary value, just as there is no literary value to a book that encourages diaper weaning.

That's why these books are not influential either.

For a book to have an effect, it has to have an emotional occurrence, and there are very few of them. '

Rodin believes that books such as those of Weiss-Gabay and Zarhi mentioned earlier certainly evoke emotional sympathy among readers, and he notes in particular Yona Tepper's book, that ecology always occupies an important place in the plots it weaves - for example in The Seven Princesses (United Kibbutz), which It does have a princess and a dragon and the spirit of a fairy tale, but at its core it is a book about a girl's struggle against a tycoon who seeks to destroy her home;

Or in "Written in Sand and Water" (United Kibbutz), a love story for youth that takes place in a moshav built near the beach, which real estate developers are trying to take over and its beautiful lily bay to build a hotel there.

Rodin would like to see more such books, books in which the protagonists encounter ecological or social problems in their lives, wrestle, ask questions and choose courses of action.

But, he says, 'most children's literature is an ally of capitalism.

"Illustrations of children's rooms show huge piles of toys spilling on all sides, children going shopping or receiving fancy gifts and seldom seeing a small booklet offering something else - for example, that you can buy less, that you can create something on the spot."

"Children have a natural sensitivity."

Dana Trivax Peshich,

Dana Trivax Peshich, editor of Matar's children's books, is currently publishing Tim Meli wants to save the sea, a book written and drawn by Patricia Uri Cohen, and tells the story of a small boat, which goes on an adventure alone at sea, and after a big storm She encounters huge amounts of garbage.

The tiny boat is stunned and decides to try to clean up the pollution - an innocent, touching experience that has long been encounters with marine animals and has, of course, an optimistic ending.

"Children," she says, "have a natural sensitivity to their environment and animals" and it is clear from this that a story that manages to touch them will harness them to be "an engine for changing habits in many families in Israel."

Netali Gvirtz: "The climate crisis is one of the most frightening things happening here, and there is no nice way to deal with it, other than close your eyes.

All attempts to tell the subject to children come out a bit crooked;

It's a bit like trying to explain how children are born, without talking about sex.

It's not a trivial thing to make a child want to understand how the world works, but only then will he feel part of it, and not detached and distant. "

Yonatan Yaakovzon, a young publisher who is one of the founders of Radical, which is currently taking its first steps, is entirely dedicated to books on ecology, sustainability and social justice, and identifies itself: Which deals with it, not only in denial or scattering of bad news but in an optimistic way, in a solution discourse, when it brings up ideas that can jump from brain to brain and allow people to talk and argue.

I think it is very worthwhile and worthwhile to start at an early age - I see a worldwide blossoming of climatic children's books, stories of young activists like Greta Thonberg and others, and stories that connect children to nature.

"We really want to reach children who read Hebrew in Israel, in the hope that through such books we can create a new narrative, a community that is united around ideas of maintaining sustainability and is full of faith in its collective capacity for action."

Author Netali Gvirtz, editor of the Young Man magazine, agrees with Jacobson, but is reluctant.

In her eyes, "the climate crisis is one of the most frightening things happening here, and there is no nice way to deal with it other than to close one's eyes."

Therefore, Gvirtz believes, "all attempts to tell the child about the subject come out a little crooked."

"Curves" refers to attempts to circumvent the facts, to talk about the extinction of animal and plant species without saying they are dying and disappearing from the world, to talk about global warming without mentioning those who will be displaced from their homes and become climate refugees. "

"The more children are exposed to nature and the more curious they are about it, the more they will care."

Netali Gvirtz // Photo: Orit Pnini,

"It's a bit like trying to explain how children are born, without talking about sex," she continues.

Therefore, as an editor, she tries to emphasize less the "scary problems and the dubious future that awaits us" and more the natural wonders.

'With the thought that the more they are exposed to nature and the more curious they are about it, the more they will care.

It is not a trivial thing to make a child want to understand how the world works, but only in this way will he feel that he is a part of it, and not detached and distant.

"I'm sure that when we offer children stories and songs a non-didactic artistic space, we reinforce their sense that they are part of the world - and they will understand that when we say we need to save the planet, we mean we need to save ourselves."

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