Introduction

Green picturebooks have been a significant publishing trend in recent years, particularly since the “Fridays for Future” movement started in 2018 where young eco-activists gained a public presence.Footnote 1 Above all, Greta Thunberg’s actions were triggers for publishers: since the beginning of her school strike in August 2018, she has become not only one of the most influential child activists, but also a significant figure reproduced in children’s literature, particularly green picturebooks (Moriarty, 2021). I use the umbrella term “green picturebooks” to describe picturebooks that are indeed often literally green (as most illustrators use this colour on front covers) and touch on topics such as the environment, climate change, global warming or eco-activism via different verbal and visual strategies used to engage young readers (cf. Beauvais, 2015, pp. 170–171). Stories told within these works may serve as tools for climate literacy, defined by Marek Oziewicz as “understanding of the climate emergency – its facts, drivers, impacts, and urgency – that centers on developing values, attitudes, and behavioral change aligned with how we should live to safeguard the Earth’s integrity in the present and for future generations” (2023, p. 34). However, many nonnarrative, informative or hybrid (mixing facts with fiction and fantasy with realism) works seem to serve a different purpose; I call these “green informational picturebooks” following Nikola von Merveldt’s notion that informational picturebooks “select, organize, and interpret facts and figures using verbal and visual codes . . . making information accessible to the interested layperson, engaging readers intellectually and emotionally” (2018, p. 232).

It is understandable and praiseworthy that publishers aim to share information on climate change and build climate awareness among young people, even though the production and distribution of picturebooks are not very eco-friendly processes (op de Beeck, 2005). This seems to be an especially intriguing topic, but one that is absent in green picturebooks. Instead, many – both narrative and nonnarrative texts– present rather generic stories, facts and images connected with the climate crisis, such as air pollution caused by driving cars or the omnipresence of plastic. The latter even appears in the book titles, such as Rachel Hope Allison’s I’m Not a Plastic Bag (2012) or A Planet Full of Plastic: and how you can help by Neal Layton (2019). Additionally, often in both the main text and peritext, readers find brief descriptions of actions they can take to change their habits and ultimately save the planet. In the article I focus on lists of tasks incorporated into books and consider whether such sections (and, potentially, whole books) can, besides instructing the readers, invite the critical engagement that some researchers find an important aspect of environmental readings, broadly understood as the tools of ecopedagogy (Goga 2021b; cf. Gaard, 2009).

Little academic attention has been paid to such lists aimed at child readers even though listing has a long tradition, as noted by Umberto Eco in The Infinity of Lists (2009, p. 7). His deepened historical investigation shows how listing was indeed an important element of different cultures throughout the history as shown on examples coming from literature, visual art, material culture, among others. Eco identifies two types of lists: poetic, so “any artistic end for which the list was proposed and whatever art form is used to express it” (p. 113) and “pragmatic lists” that have a “purely practical purpose of naming and listing . . . are finite [and] may not be altered” (p. 113). The latter seem to appear in green informational picturebooks and – despite Eco’s notion that “it is obvious why people make practical lists” (p. 117) – in the case of works selected for my analysis it is crucial to ask how these lists may influence the child reader. As they use imperative verbs (“use,” “reduce,” etc.), often with negation (“don’t”), they serve as rhetorical tools of control and power over the everyday life of children.

One may find such lists in books published internationally, both in ‘traditional’ informational works, such as the German Müll [Waste] (Raidt, 2019), Planet Rescue: What Can We Do to Help Save the Planet? (George, 2019) and the Polish Śmieciogród [Trashville] (Woldańska-Płocińska, 2019), as well as “new,” “poetic,” “artistic” or “hybrid” ones (Grilli, 2020, 2021; Kesler, 2012; Rohloff and May, 2017), which mix facts with fiction and aesthetics and are more inspiring and emotionally engaging than educational. Examples of the latter are the poetic picturebook Be a Tree! (Gianferrari and Sala, 2021) and Greta and the Giants (Tucker and Persico, 2019), a story mixing realism with fantasy.

While the picturebooks named above represent different genres, many of these lists – often given in the latter part of the book, especially as an afterword or another form of peritext – have some points in common, for example promoting the use of water bottles instead of plastic containers (Raidt, 2019, p. 74; Woldańska-Płocińska, 2019, p. 77) and the need to decrease consumerism (Gianferrari and Sala, 2021, n.p.; Raidt, 2019, pp. 78–89; Tucker and Persico, 2019, n.p.; Woldańska-Płocińska, 2019, p. 77). Some invite readers to engage in local communities and eco-activism (Gianferrari and Sala, 2021, n.p.; Raidt, 2019, pp. 80–81; Tucker and Persico, 2019, n.p.; Woldańska-Płocińska, 2019, p. 79). There are also rather demanding tasks – assuming that informational picturebooks are mainly aimed at child readers, while the actual readers may also be adults – that seem more suitable for adults to perform, such as adjusting food shopping to seasonal and local products (Raidt, 2019, p. 75; Tucker and Persico, 2019, n.p.) or riding a bike instead of a car (George, 2019, n.p.; Tucker and Persico, 2019, n.p.).

From the ethical point of view, such lists of tasks to perform may develop young readers’ agency (Christensen, 2021) and represent part of environmental children’s literature that – according to Brianna Anderson – “should motivate readers to improve and protect the Earth, or at least ask them to recognize their complicity in environmental crisis” (2021, p. 184, italics in original).Footnote 2 On the other hand – as pointed out by Clémentine Beauvais – green picturebooks often “transfer guilt and shame from adult to child” as “children’s eventual inheritance of the Earth means that they are born always already responsible for it . . . These books therefore often address the child reader, paradoxically, both as mighty agent and as an authority regarding the environment” (2015, p. 170, italics in original). Beauvais also explains that “such books are not disempowering for the child: they are too empowering. They set up expectations of might on the child’s part which are impossible to follow” (p. 176, italics in original).

I agree with Beauvais’ argument and have seen this tendency in many green informational picturebooks. Nevertheless, in my article I will focus on lists of tasks incorporated into a book and consider whether such sections invite critical engagement from the reader – a notion described by Joe Sutliff Sanders in A Literature of Questions: Nonfiction for the Critical Child (2018). This ability seems crucial in times of fake news when there is a need for conscious action and political engagement in climate issues; hence the importance of analysing the content of green informational picturebooks that aim to inspire eco-activism. A similar investigation of the critical engagement triggered by green picturebooks was performed by Sinéad Moriarty in her analysis of Thunberg’s biographies for young readers (2021, pp. 202–205), Suzanne van der Beek and Charlotte Lehmann’s essay on how informational works foster agency and enable child readers to position themselves within the discussion on climate change (2022) and Nina Goga’s work on Swedish environmental picturebooks (2022, pp. 10–14). My analysis shares some points in common with all these essays, but I focus on the strictly informative parts of books (lists of tasks), which are predominantly given in the peritext, not the main text. Anderson’s case study of Allison’s I’m Not a Plastic Bag was driven by the same idea as mine as Allison’s book section “How Can You Help?” was analysed in detail (Anderson, 2021, pp. 186–187), but the article focuses on conflicting environmental messages and tension between an “imaginative story and the conservative framework of the paratext” (p. 174), which falls outside the scope of my interest intends to, By focusing on peritextual tasks lists, the aim of this article is to seek possible critical engagement triggered by these elements in selected green informational picturebooks, and thus fill the remaining gap.

Informational Picturebooks

As mentioned above, von Merveldt notes that informational picturebooks engage readers by verbal and visual codes used to select, organise and interpret facts; thus, they “go far beyond facts, readily available elsewhere, to awaken curiosity, inspire awe, and nurture community” (2018, p. 232). Moreover, they “distinguish themselves from textbooks and scholarly books by their desire to amuse, entertain, and inspire their readers” (p. 232). Of the many qualities of contemporary informational picturebooks listed by von Merveldt, awakening curiosity and inspiring the reader seem crucial for both developing climate literacy through environmental literature and for my investigation, as they provoke readers to engage in further reading, ask questions and critically engage with knowledge acquisition. In A Literature of Questions Sanders (2018) describes a potential shift in the thinking of children’s nonfictionFootnote 3 from “a literature of facts” (Fisher, 1972) or “a literature of answers” (Sanders, 2018, pp. 44–45) to “a literature of questions” that enables critical engagement “characterised by a sharing of authority between reader and text, allowing for a form of active dialogue between text and reader rather than the reader’s passive receipt of information from the authoritative text” (p. 13). Moreover, critical engagement may foster ecocritical literature conversation – understood as an “ecodialogic space for students to analyse, discuss, think together, and negotiate the meaning of a literary work from an ecocentric perspective” (Goga and Pujol-Valls, 2020, p. 4) – both in higher-level education and with child readers.

One of the chapters in Sanders’ book focuses on the “voice” of nonfiction, including the use of three terms useful for investigating the potential of readers’ critical approach to the text: ‘hedges’, ‘visible authors’ and ‘necromancers’ (2018, p. 49). Hedges are words such as “perhaps” and “might” that provoke significant scepticism in the reader toward information (p. 51); visible authors reveal themselves through phrases such as “it seems to me” or “we suggest” that draw readers’ attention to the subjectivity of the text (p. 55); readers become necromancers when they are able to relate to multiple authorial voices when reading the text, and different points of view are given (p. 65).

Additionally, Sanders (2018) shows the importance of peritexts as a tool for encouraging critical reading (pp. 107–132). Title, cover illustration, blurb, introduction, preface, afterword and list of further readings or references are peritextual elements that may be found in informational picturebooks. Grasping their role is crucial to a full understanding of how an informational book influences the reader (Daly, 2021, pp. 98–99; Goga 2021a, p. 183; Ramos, 2021, pp. 223–234, von Merveldt, 2018, pp. 235–241). Peritexts are also a key element of my research, as a title or cover illustration strongly shape the initial approach towards the content of a green informational picturebook (Rybak, 2022, pp. 326–328; Rybak, et al., 2022, pp. 369–370; Tandoi and Spring, 2022, pp. 113–115); hence, analysis of the peritext should be considered obligatory for research of informational picturebooks in general. Moreover, as proved by Nina Goga, epitexts – understood as paratexts outside of the book (such as book reviews and interviews with the authors) – may be as important for children’s informational book analysis as main texts and peritexts (2021b, pp. 4–6).

In the following section, I examine selected green informational picturebooks through a theoretical framework based on research on picturebooks and children’s nonfiction and look for signals that may invite readers to take a critical approach towards the information on fighting climate change. My body of works consists of:

  • Müll. Alles über die lästigste sache der welt [Waste: Everything About the Most Bothersome Thing in the World] by Gerda Raidt (2019).

  • Be a Tree!, written by Maria Gianferrari and illustrated by Felicita Sala (2021).

  • Greta and the Giants, written by Zoë Tucker and illustrated by Zoe Persico (2019).

  • Śmieciogród. Zero Waste [Trashville: Zero Waste] by Ola Woldańska-Płocińska (2021).

I focus on the tasks that the reader should perform to fight climate change and the ways they are introduced in four books published in three different languages, different countries and different educational traditions and practices, giving particular consideration to how critical thinking is developed. Another factor in selecting the books for analysis was artistic diversity, as these titles represent different forms and ‘genres’ of informational picturebooks, including nonnarrative expository text (Müll and Śmieciogród), an informational poem (Be a Tree!) and a hybrid work mixing realism and fantasy (Greta and the Giants); what connects all the titles is the fact that the books are aimed at readers of similar age groups (Greta and the Giants and Śmieciogród for 6+, Be a Tree! and Müll for 7+). Moreover, all the works are internationally recognised and have been translated into foreign languages including French, German, English, Spanish, Korean, and Dutch.

Choosing a modest body of works enables me to discuss the tasks (most often given in lists) used to invite the reader to perform certain actions that can help the planet and verify whether they invite the critical engagement proposed by Sanders (2018). Though limited to European publications, the selection is actually linguistically and geographically diverse; hence, the titles are representative but by no means exhaustive, as informational picturebooks with similar sections have been published worldwide.Footnote 4

Analysis and Discussion

Müll is a German picturebook depicting different child figures that show the reader how waste is produced, managed, recycled and so on. On the one hand it promotes intergenerational eco-activism, but on the other some adults shown in the book rather distance themselves from this issue; moreover, some of their actions are silently criticised by a child’s gaze (Raidt, 2019, pp. 72–74). There are also speech bubbles containing short comments made by adults about managing waste: “Das bringt nichts. Dann gibt es ja nur ein winziges bisschen weniger Müll auf der Welt” [It won’t make a difference. There will be just a tiny bit less garbage in the world] (p. 82), “Hört mir bloß mit solchen Ökos auf” [Just stop with these Eco-freaks] or “Man kann doch sowieso nicht ändern” [You cannot change it anyway] (p. 83).

Müll does not contain a single peritextual section listing tasks that a reader may perform; instead, the last twenty pages give numerous answers to the question “Kann man dagegen etwas tun?” [Can anything be done about it?] (p. 71). Even though these pages are not formally divided from the main text, their role is close to the peritexts on which I focus as they refer to the topics touched on in previous pages and constitute a separate part of the book. These last pages discuss actions the child reader may take, such as reducing consumption, borrowing and repairing things instead of buying new ones, organising flea markets (pp. 72–90) and cleaning up the world together with others. The illustration shows people of different ages and skin colours, dressed in different clothes (including traditional ones), saying words in different languages including: “Let’s clean it up!”, “Sampah terlalu banyak!” [Too much trash!], “Ripuliamo tutta questa immondizia!” [Let’s clean up all this garbage!], “Sisi tunahitaji kubadilika!” [We need to change!], “Protégeons ensemble l’environnement!” [Let’s protect the environment together!], “Muszę coś z tym zrobić” [I must do something about it!] “Hajde da raskrčimo!” [Let’s clean it up!], “Minder afval maken” [Make less waste], “¡Maldita basura!” [Damn waste!] and “Weg mit dem Müll!” [Get rid of the waste!] (pp. 84–85).

The phrases spoken by characters are diverse (as are their motivations), but both children and adults are engaged in the process in the same way, stressing the need for unity to fight climate change. The fight is also stressed through the use of imperative forms in both singular and plural (“ripuliamo,” “protégeons,” etc.). Hence – despite an apparent possibility for Sanders’ necromancy from the multiple voices – there is little space for the critical engagement of the reader, as the characters opt for the same action, the action is not questioned (lack of hedges) and no alternatives to it are given; moreover, these actions seem to be ethical as positive words such as “ripuliamo” or “protégeons” are used. Moral aspects of eco-activism seem to dominate over possible critical engagement, as raising questions about actions to follow on both linguistic and ethical levels seem to undermine collective effort put into making the planet a better place. Readers who follow Raidt’s works may notice that in her 2021 Das ist auch meine Welt. Wie können wir sie besser machen? [This is my World, too. How can we make it better?] she opened the text for more critical engagement, as the book is more dialogic than Müll because Raidt becomes a visible author (Sanders, 2018, p. 55), both verbally and visually (Raidt, 2021). Moreover, the book lacks direct, one-way messages aimed at child readers as the question given in the title is discussed but not definitively answered.

Be a Tree! is an English-language picturebook that addresses child readers with an illustrated poem and invites them to be a tree:

Be a tree!

Stand tall.

Stretch your branches to the sun.

Let your roots curl,

coil in the soil to ground you . . .

In your heart’s center.

is your pith,

keeper of nutrients.

when you were a sapling . . . (Gianferrari and Sala, 2021, n.p.)

As the following verses expand readers’ relation with trees, the text mixes poetic form with information on the nature of plants. Moreover, Sala’s illustrations cleverly correspond to Gianferrari’s poem, stressing the biological, physiological and social similarities between trees and humans,Footnote 5 ending the poem with:

So, be a tree.

For together,

we are a forest. (n.p.)

Following the poem are three double-spreads: the first contains sections entitled “Author’s Note,” “Five Ways You Can Help Save Trees” and “Be a Forest: How You Can Help in Your Community,” the second “Anatomy of a Tree” and the third “Further Readings” (n.p.). “Five Ways You Can Help Save Trees” is a specific list that relates only to trees; nevertheless, deforestation is an issue strongly connected to climate change. The list of tasks is short, yet presents rather complex and demanding actions the reader should take:

  1. 1.

    Recycle all paper products. . .

  2. 2.

    Plant native trees and help preserve mature trees in your community.

  3. 3.

    Stage a community cleanup.

  4. 4.

    Host a fundraiser . . . and donate the proceeds to an environmental organization.

  5. 5.

    Celebrate Arbor Day. (n.p.)

The disparity between the almost spiritual, emotionally engaging poem and the explicit, concrete, action-oriented tasks is particularly striking, as the latter require social and organisational skills that may overwhelm some child readers. Moreover, these solutions seem to be aimed at “middle-class adults more than children” (Anderson, 2021, p. 174). This tendency dominates in most green informational picturebooks, but it is rarely explicit in the text. Besides, poetic picturebooks on environmental topics may be especially challenging for child readers, as noted by Goga in her research on school readings of a Norwegian book Hva var det hun sa? by Agnar Lirhus and Rune Markhus (Goga, 2016, pp. 70–71).

Additionally, there seem to be no rhetorical tools used that can engage critical engagement (hedges, necromancy), and there is no space for the reader to question the tasks. In fact, in Be a Tree! the author becomes visible (Sanders, 2018, p. 55) yet Gianferrari seems to legitimise tasks in the list as important for the community and not coming from her own belief: “We must do our best to protect [the trees], and we can also learn much as a society from their social system. If we behaved like trees in a forest, by protecting each other and sharing resources of all kinds, the world would be a much better place!” (Gianferrari and Sala, 2021, n.p.). Here, the plural pronoun “we” appears, stressing the collaborative nature of helping the environment (Goga 2021b, p. 3); hence, the name of the list also shows that it is aimed at a group, not a single reader.

Collaboration in the fight against climate change is strongly visible in Greta and the Giants (Tucker and Persico, 2019). This picturebook is a story set in a fantastic world in which the planet is being destroyed by giants. A little girl in a yellow jacket called Greta starts to protest against the giants, and soon more children and animals join her. The book may be classified as hybrid, as it mixes realism with fantasy and fiction with facts: the main character strongly resembles Thunberg, and an explicit reference to her is made on the front cover (“Inspired by Greta Thunberg’s stand to save the World”), although Moriarty excludes Greta and the Giants from her analysis of Thunberg’s biographies “because its fantastic mode sets it apart from the nonfiction biographies” (2021, p. 207).

The story ends with a happy ending after which additional peritexts are spread across two pages. One gives a brief description of global warming and climate change as well as Thunberg’s biography, while the other is a list of “some things you can do to help Greta” (n.p.):

  • Learn . . . about climate change. Tell your friends and family . . . what you have learned.

  • Ask your parents . . . to take you on a climate protest . . . Ask your teacher if your class can write to or visit your MP . . .

  • Walk, run, cycle or take the bus or train instead of getting in the car or taking a plane . . .

  • Try to get your family to eat less meat. Ask your parents or guardian to buy food made nearby instead of from a far-away country.

  • Look after the things you have. Mend them when they are broken . . . Share them with your friends . . .

  • You might think that it won’t make a difference but if we all work together, WE CAN CHANGE THE WORLD. (n.p.)

Here the pronoun “you,” given in the name of the list, seem to be singular (e.g., “tell your friends and family”). However, the tasks which follow also indicate the reader’s friends and parents, corresponding to the story in the main text in which Greta starts her fight alone and gathers allies over time. Simultaneously, it seems to contradict the collaborative “WE CAN CHANGE THE WORLD,” rendered in block letters to strengthen the message. This may also indicate that there seems to be no place for potential critical engagement, as no hedges and other rhetorical tools may be identified. On the contrary, it seems that the narrative story, which engages readers emotionally by using fantastic elements and depicting an alliance between children and animals, may influence the reader so much that they might accept the tasks with no hesitation at all.

The last example is Śmieciogród by Woldańska-Płocińska (2021), a Polish picturebook in which each double-spread presents a phenomenon related to the use of different materials and management of waste through time (ancient vases, plastic bottles, freeganism, etc.). Original typography and illustrations are also added to the text; for example, a boy drinking water from a glass and not a paper cup is shown as a superhero in a double-spread entitled “Prawdziwy bohater pije ze szklanki” [A True Hero Drinks from a Glass] (p. 64), so the language and images explicitly reflect the ideological agenda of the book.

Following the overview of waste in history is a list of tasks to carry out if the reader wants to help the planet. The two most interesting sections are, again, at the very end of the book: “Złota piątka” [The Golden Five] (p. 76) and “Młodzi uratują świat!!” [Young People Will Save the World!!] (p. 79). The title of the first double-spread refers to the five points in the list and stresses both the small number of the tasks a young reader can take to save the planet (easy to count on just one hand) and the finite nature of the list (Eco, 2009, p. 113), as there are five – and five only – tasks to consider. The image for “Młodzi uratują świat!!” shows a young person as a role model who follows the five golden “rules” (Woldańska-Płocińska, 2021, p. 77) presented in the previous double-spread:

  1. 1.

    Pij wodę z kranu: Jest równie dobra jak ta kupowana w sklepie, a do tego dużo tańsza i łatwiej dostępna . . . [Drink tap water: It’s just as good as water bought in a store; moreover, it’s much cheaper and easily available . . .]

  2. 2.

    Zawsze zabieraj ze sobą bawełnianą torbę . . . [Always take a cotton bag with you . . .]

  3. 3.

    Miej własny prowiant . . . [Make your own lunch . . .]

  4. 4.

    Wymieniaj się . . . [Exchange . . .]

  5. 5.

    Używaj ponownie . . . [Reuse . . .] (p. 77).

As in the other books analysed, all the tasks are explained and examples are given, but little space is left for a child to be critical: one of the additional comments in a hand-written font given below the first tasks says: “Jeśli już musisz kupić napój w sklepie, lepiej wybrać ten w szklanej butelce, a po wypiciu wyrzucić ją do pojemnika na szkło” [If you have to buy a drink at the store, it is better to choose one in a glass bottle and, after drinking it, throw it away in the container for used glass] (p. 77). Here, the reader encounters two solutions for the same problem becoming a “necromancer” (Sanders 2018, p. 65), which may encourage them to ask questions about particular tasks given in other points on the list and to search for some solutions on their own, such as on the Internet.

My analysis focused only on a small part of a larger phenomenon: similar tasks directly aimed at child readers may be found in many green informational picturebooks – narrative and nonnarrative, traditional and new nonfiction. The analysis shows that there is no or very little space for critical engagement in lists of tasks to save the planet. Phrases and sentences used do not provoke questions; rather, they prompt the actions the reader should take, in instructional mode. It seems then that the shift from “a literature of facts” (Fisher, 1972) to “a literature of questions” (Sanders, 2018) may not be applied to environmental picturebooks (Moriarty, 2021, p. 205), as these works of children’s literature allow limited space for questions, preferring instead to give space to actions. Hence, following Sanders I propose to use the term a literature of actions as not opposed or contradictory to literature of questions but rather a complementary phenomenon that may inspire activism – in environmental literature eco-activism specifically. Literature of actions thus partly corresponds to ‘radical books about environment’ that – according to Julia L. Mickenberg and Philp Nel – “don’t just advocate recycling, but also consuming less. Furthermore, they explain to children the true consequences of pollution, resource depletion, decreasing biodiversity, unrestricted development, and lost animal habitats” (2011, pp. 457). It also has much in common with “active nonfiction,” defined by Melissa Stewart and Marlene Correia as books that are “highly interactive and/or teach skills that readers can use to engage in an activity” (2021, p. 19).

Despite different language, cultural, social and political backgrounds, all the works falling under the category of a literature of actions introduce similar steps to take to save the planet. As noted by van der Beek and Lehmann, “environmental texts for children tend to homogenize their audience and assume, for instance, that all children face similar consequences of climate change, or that all children have access to the same resources needed to perform the kinds of changes that are necessary to restore ecological balance” (2022, n.p.). This may also explain why most of the tasks given in green informational picturebooks are oversimplified (Anderson, 2021, p. 186); perhaps as authors imagine that simplification makes them more easily and individually performed or collaboration easier to establish. Additionally, two books – Müll (Raidt, 2019) and Be a Tree! (Gianferrari and Sala, 2021) – fit Greta Gaard’s understanding of ecopedagogical children’s literature that foregrounds inclusion and unity (2009, p. 327), stressed by van der Beek and Lehmann as “the first important function of socially conscious environmental children’s literature” (2022, n.p.). Both singular and plural pronouns are used in a literature of actions to reach the readers and engage them individually or collectively, but what seems crucial is that engagement is focused on taking concrete steps and not on developing the critical thinking needed for the fight against climate change.

Conclusion

I have named green informational picturebooks that may be perceived as both eco-activist books (promoting eco-activist tasks) and books about eco-activism (presenting eco-activism and eco-activists) a literature of actions, as they present certain tasks and encourage readers to take action. Of course, some are rather idealistic and set unrealistic goals, as noted by van der Beek and Lehmann: “a potential trap for children’s environmental literature lies in its tendency to . . . offer potential ways for fighting climate change which are not accessible to all readers” (2022, n.p.). They are – in Beauvais’ words – “too empowering” and “set up expectations of might on the child’s part which are impossible to follow” (Beauvais, 2015, p. 176, italics in original) (2021b). On the other hand, green informational picturebooks invite the reader to take small steps to help save the planet, such as learning more about climate change or sending a letter: a Polish picturebook Tu i teraz! [Here and now!] by Joanna Guszta and Przemek Liput (2021) even contains a blank form the reader can tear out, fill in and send to the Polish Ministry of Climate and Environment. Actions such as this are mainly triggered by the peritextual lists that make books analysed fall under the category of a literature of actions.

Peritextual elements – often more explicit than the main text – seem crucial for provoking actions. Use of language and rhetorical tools aimed at engaging the reader and the inclusion of direct lists of tasks seems to challenge the main text’s power to engage, whether it is a poem (Be a Tree!), a hybrid narrative (Greta and the Giants) or a nonnarrative content (Müll and Śmieciogród), hence questioning its ability to inspire and teach (cf. Nikolajeva, 2014, pp. 5–6, 21–27, 31–35Footnote 6). Authors of the works analysed seem to seek a balance between artistic quality of the content (both verbal and visual) and practicality of the lists that – as their popularity in environmental picturebooks proves – seem to be an important element useful for the readers, despite a notion expressed by von Merveldt that “the digital age relieves non-fiction picturebooks of some of the burden of providing factual information, which is easily accessible elsewhere” (2020, p. 123).

It should also be noted that youth activism – including eco-activism – comes from disagreement with ruling conditions or norms and the need for a change (Conrad, 2021, p. 229); hence, it should also be rooted in a critical attitude towards every aspect of the surrounding world. Although there is little space for critical thinking in the works analysed that fall under the term of a literature of actions, it seems that it may be still possible for the direct promotion of eco-actions and development of critical (at least to some extent) engagement to co-exist, as Goga’s (2021b) investigation of Norwegian picturebooks shows. She stresses that if child readers are motivated by the books to think critically and ask questions, they may also question the adults who instruct them as they are responsible for certain actions and practices that have downgraded the planet (pp. 8–9). Moreover, it is unlikely that a single work of literature of actions will be read on its own but rather next to other titles that may represent Sanders’ literature of actions, offering the child reader a broad spectrum of rhetorical, artistic, and practical tools to foster both activism and critical thinking.

Nevertheless, in the examples analysed there is very little space to welcome questions from the readers. The reason some green informational picturebooks – including those works that may be classified as a literature of actions – are less likely to foster critical engagement may be that fighting the climate crisis is crucial to ensure humanity’s future wellbeing. As green picturebooks show, children are agents in achieving this future wellbeing; hence, the eco-pedagogy in such books becomes an area of oppression, transferring the responsibility for making the world a better place to children (Beauvais, 2015, p. 170). This may be why green informational picturebooks invite little critical engagement: if they did so more significantly, children might protest against the responsibility put on them by adults, including adult authors.