Literature for and about children, from the earliest folk tales, has always addressed life and death. During an era of world focus on child refugees, planetary changes, and a global pandemic, we look at hardships —stigma, displacement, self-injury — in historical narratives and current stories unfolding. In diverse genres, from horror story to high adventure, young heroes sustain themselves in the face of adult decisions regarding scarcity (food and water), violence, illness, and abuse. This environmental humanities seminar examines how early reading mediates crises in picture books, YA biography, social media, and contemporary film. Drawing on theories of trauma, we analyze the recording of personal agency and witness in juvenile diaries, letters, and memoir. Eclectic approaches are welcome in tracking these growing-up stories which illuminate profound contrasts and unusual assumptions about atrocity, pain and healing.

This course fulfills the LSA Upper Level Writing Requirement (ULWR).