Children and Nature in a Picture Book “Our Big Home”: An earth poem–ecocriticism

All the living creatures and nature cannot be separated, especially humans as one of the living creatures. Humans depend on the environment as the source of their lives. The purposes of this research are: (i) to reveal the medium of what binds the children and nature, (ii) to portray the bonds between children and nature. This research is focused on the way to raise the awareness of fundamental nature issues using a picture book. The ecocriticism is applied in this research. The qualitative research methodology is employed in this research based on the interpretative philosophy. Techniques of data analysis are collecting data, note taking and ecocriticism analyzing. The source of data is a picture book entitled Our Big Home: An Earth Poem by Linda Glaser as the author and Elisa Kleven as the illustrator. This book was published in 2000. Our Big Home: An Earth Poem depicts the bond between children and nature in its poems and illustrations. The result showed that the researcher found out the bonds between children and nature and what bind them. The relationships are keeper and provider, caretaker and home, lifesaver and life-giver. The binds are Earth, Parent, Other Children, Children’s Stuff. Keywords—ecocriticism; children; children’s literature; nature