The Environment and Its Place in Children's Picture Story Books

Abstract

Children receive many messages about real world concepts from picture story books. In Turkey, there is not enough research and literature about the available picture story books which include environmental themes, concepts and motifs. The aim of this research is to examine the environmental themes in picture story books, for 2-12 year-old children, published in Turkey. Quantitative research methods were used in this descriptive study. Eighty picture story books published between 1995 and 2010 were selected and evaluated. A Book Review Form developed by the researchers was used to evaluate the books. According to the analysis results, in general, 80 percent of the books have the environment theme as a main topic in their contents. These books, in particular, contain topics on tidiness (7.5 percent), seasons (3.8 percent), nature and nature concepts (22.5 percent) and the importance of the water (2.5 percent). Environment related concepts were found in picture books for ages six and over; the main figures in the books were animals and humans. As a result of the study, it is recommended that preschool children's picture story books should have environmental concepts as well. (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.