Eco-Activism in Children’s Literature and Childhood Culture: An Illustrated History

Lisa Sainsbury

NB This is an abridged version of Lisa Sainsbury’s keynote address, which focusses on the historical grounding of eco-activism in children’s literature. This was an illustrated talk and only a limited selection of images can be included in this published version.

This paper provides a historical and socio-cultural context for the IBBY UK 2024 conference on ‘The Evolution of the Eco-Warrior’; it focusses on children’s literature, youth cultureand their links to environmental activism and radicalism. 

As I will demonstrate, historical developments in children’s literature occur in parallel with the evolution of environmental ideas and ecocriticism. Indeed, there are many areas of overlap in trajectories we might trace across these fields.

Aesop and John Agard’s The Young Inferno (2008)

Today’s evolutionary journey takes us back to Aesop – a storyteller whose significance is well established in histories of children’s literature and whose fables are a touchstone for several of the thinkers, practitioners, and activists I will be referring to. For reasons similar to those outlined by John Agard in The Young inferno (2008), we can consider Aesop a guide into the moral, philosophical, or even radical remit of our ecological terrain. Agard explains that, “For the tour guide of The Young Inferno, I decided to use Aesop, whose fables Dante might have read in Latin translation and whose African ancestry is often forgotten” (Agard, intro, 2008). In all likelihood, Aesop (620-560 BC) was a Greek slave of African descent and Agard makes visible the storyteller who has been made invisible by the operations of dominant white Western culture. 

Agard is not directly engaged with environmental politics in The Young Inferno, but he is concerned with the awakening of ethical awareness and moral courage in his every-child – or ‘eco-warrior’ for our purposes – who wakes ‘in the middle of…childhood wonder, in a forest wild and sombre’ (Canto 1). Indeed, we can trace seeds of the sort of political and philosophical considerations required for ecological engagement and environmental activism in Agard’s Young Inferno – and potentially in questions arising from Aesop’s Fables. As Agard’s Aesop observes: ‘It just shows that neither beast nor man/ can be divided into black and white’ (Canto 2).If we are concerned with ecology, we are concerned with equality – for all human beings, for all non-human beings, for all life forms and their wider environment. I will return briefly to Aesop’s Fables via illustrations by Thomas Bewick, but for now I move on to a sixteenth-century concept that has influenced radicalism in children’s literature and which supports the idea that young ‘eco-warriors’ have a particular kind of power related to their youth.

Utopia (1516) Thomas More

NB Elements of sections on Utopia and The Rights of Infants are taken from a discussion of Spence, radicalism and utopia in Sainsbury’s Metaphysics of Children’s Literature (2021, 142-144).

Thomas More’s notion of ‘utopia’ arises from the Greek ou-topos meaning ‘no place’ (or nowhere). As Peter Liebregts observes, ‘the word “utopia” has become one of the best-known puns in literary history ever since Thomas More designated his vision of an ideal non-existent place…as such playing on the Greek for ou, “non-” and eu, “good”’ (2010: 1). More’s pun concedes the impossibility of ideal worlds, while simultaneously opening a space for radicalism through the process of utopian world building. Bulit on the idea of worlds that could or might exist, utopia is essentially a modal proposition with the sort of forward potential inherent in Clémentine Beauvais’ notion of the mighty child.

In her 2015 book, The Mighty Child Beauvais explores power relations between the child and adult respectively in terms of might and authority: ‘To be mighty is to have more time left, to be authoritative is to have more time past’ (2015: 19). The child has a specific kind of power to act on lessons learnt in the future, passed on to them by adults who share their past and lived experience – and children can do something mighty with this knowledge that is peculiar to them. Authoritative adults, though powerful in their own right, do not possess this mighty power. Although More’s Utopia is not directed to a child audience, its mighty potential – in part for trying out progressive systems of education—was recognised by some of the most influential practitioners in the early development of children’s literature, as Matthew Grenby establishes in his 2016 exploration of utopian radicals, such as Thomas Spence and John Newbery.

Grenby demonstrates that Spence’s ‘understanding of education’s potential was inspired at least in part by his exposure…to a surprisingly radical children’s literature’ (2016: 131), including works produced by Newbery, such as The Lilliputian Magazine (1751-2). A crucial aspect of Grenby’s argument is that Newbery perceived children’s literature as an especially useful vehicle for utopian politics, which would have appealed to Spence’s ambitions for educational reform. In bringing together Newbery and Spence, Grenby ‘highlights the remarkable radicalism of mid-eighteenth-century children’s literature, and…emphasises how important education was as a strand of Spence’s utopian thinking’ (142). 

It is worth pausing here to note that The Lilliputian Magazine is full of references to the natural world, such as Polly Newbury’s ‘Happy Nightingale’, which signals a concern for animal welfare in its lament against ‘fowlers’ snares’. It could be argued that the implied young reader is invited to consider the rights of the Nightingale to sing freely through this short song.

The Rights of Infants (1797) Thomas Spence

Spence 1750-1815 was a revolutionary and pamphleteer of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, publishing numerous pamphlets in his lifetime, including The Rights of Infants (1797). As Grenby suggests, A Supplement to the History of Robinson Crusoe, Being the History of Crusonia, or Robinson Crusoe’s Island(1782) and Description of Spensonia (1795) reveal Spence as a utopian visionary.This utopian vision has been taken as an ‘early step toward the UN convention on the rights of the child’ (Grenby, 2016: 140) and, while Grenby is cautious about the extent of Spence’s influence in this respect, the ambition for practicable social reform is evident in The Rights of Infants, as is a coalition of child and animal rights.

The Rights of Infants is fashioned as a ‘Dialogue between the Aristocracy and a Mother of Children’ in which a ‘Woman’ argues that the rights of ‘every species of young…extend to a full participation of the fruits of the earth’ (Spence, 1982/1797: 114). Spence places the infant child in a biosphere of natural sustenance in which humans exist alongside non-humans and argues that all children should have free access to the world in which they exist, in the same manner as bears, wolves, and otters. Spence’s comparative approach to species recognises that fundamentals of survival are contingent on access to dwelling spaces, as is clear in the mother’s furious cross-examination of the Aristocracy: ‘Villains! Why do you ask that aggravating question? Have not the foxes holes, and the birds of the air nests, and shall the children of men have not where to lay their heads?’ (114). In this final phrase, the mother invokes spaces of homely warmth – fox holes and bird nests – which human children living in poverty are denied. 

The flourish of Spence’s utopian revelation is yet to come though, during which:

‘lisping Infants shall tam’d tygers lead:
With deadly asps shall sportive sucklings play
[….]
Then, Mortals, join to hail great Nature’s plan,
That fully gives to Babes those Rights it gives to Man.’ (121)

The beasts populating The Rights of Infants are enlisted by Spence to serve ananthropocentric schema of human rights, yet a residual investment in non-human being is central to his agenda. When looking back to early cultures of childhood and the utopian thinking on which Spence draws, it is clear that concepts of childhood are embedded in radical ideas and early signs of ecological awareness. The threads that weave together radical politics, childhood culture, education, and ecology continue to be teased out across eighteenth and nineteenth century literature, as we shall see.

Figure 2 Thomas Bewick, A General History of Quadrupeds (1790/1800, 206).

‘The Mouse’s Petition’ (1773) Anna Laetitia Barbauld

Anna Laetitia Barbauld’s ‘The Mouse’s Petition’ was first published in Poems (1773), though it was composed slightly earlier as a playful challenge to Joseph Priestley’s practice of using live mice for his experiments in natural philosophy and chemistry. Barbauld had taken dinner with Priestly and he was to undertake an experiment on the mouse, but it got too late and the mouse was placed in a cage. Reportedly the poem was written by Barbauld overnight and delivered wrapped around the bars of a mouse’s cage after breakfast. The poem is written from the mouse’s perspective and the first three stanzas make an eloquent, if tongue-in-cheek, argument for the rodent’s release:

Oh, hear a pensive captive’s prayer,
For liberty that sighs,
And never let thine heart be shut
Against the prisoner’s cries! 

For here forlorn and sad I sit,
Within the wiry grate,
And tremble at the approaching morn
Which brings impending fate.

If e’er thy breast with freedom glowed,
And spurned a tyrant’s chain,
Let not thy strong oppressive force
A free-born mouse detain! 

(Barbauld, 1773)

Consequently, Priestly changed his mind about the experiment and this particular mouse was saved. Mary Ellen Bellanca observes that Barbauld’s poem can be understood in a wider eighteenth-century context, in which ‘the use of living animals in scientific experiments […] emerged as a topic of public debate’ (2003, 48) –  a debate in which Priestly and Barbauld were both engaged.  ‘Barbauld, like Priestley, valued the advancement of scientific knowledge as well as the quality of “humanity” or compassion toward nonhuman animals. Nor was Priestley insensitive to animal welfare…; his own writings betray an uneasiness about hurting weaker creatures in the pursuit of knowledge’ (2003: 49). Bellanca explains that ‘The Mouse’s Petition’ struck a responsive chord as well with contemporary and later readers. It has been reprinted often, by admirers ranging from Mary Wollstonecraft to the World Wildlife Fund’ (48).‘The Mouse’s Petition’ is also associated with the early days of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA), which was founded in 1824 as the SPCA. This British institution has seen the involvement of nature writers and eco-activists, such as Richard Adams (Watership Down, 1972; ThePlague Dogs, 1977) and Dara McAnulty (Diary of a Young Naturalist, 2020) who can be considered on a trajectory of ecological discourse in childhood culture that reaches back (at least) to Barbauld. Indeed, this increasing awareness of cruelty to animals and the moral basis of pro-animal activism has been reinforced by children’s literature, which from the eighteenth century to the present day has used animals as prompts for ethical consideration of non-human beings. 

Natural History and Nature Writing

At this juncture I want to say a little bit about the rise of ecology and natural history in the eighteenth century, because it influences what we have come to recognise as modern nature writing as well as broader developments in children’s literature. One of the most significant British works of natural history is The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne 1768-93, which was published in 1789 by Gilbert White. White is a ‘parson-naturalist’ who is widely recognised as Britain’s first ecologist and developed first principles of ecology. As records at the Gilbert White House reveal, ‘Charles Darwin claimed that he “stood on the shoulders” of White and came on “a pilgrimage to Selborne” as a young man in June 1857’ (GWH, 2025). White is renowned for his method of ‘observing narrowly’ and for his detailed observation of all that he saw around him; ‘He noticed, for example, that owls hooted in B flat. Nothing escaped his notice or his notebook’ (GHW, 2025). This observational method can be seen at play in much natural writing for children, via writers and illustrators who could be said to work in White’s tradition, such as Richard Jefferies (Bevis, 1882), Beatrix Potter (The Tale of Peter Rabbit, 1902), or Henry Williamson and Charles Tunnicliff (Tarka the Otter, 1927). The Natural History has been interpreted by numerous illustrators, including Eric Ravilious in 1938 and Chris Wormell in 1994 (for an example of a Ravilious woodcut for the 1938 edition, follow a link to theV&A record in Works Cited). Ravilious and Wormell have each illustrated children’s books and, while Ravilious is perhaps better known for fine art, Wormell has created a large number of picturebooks for young readers. Mice, Morals, and Monkey Business (2005), Wormell’s take on Aesop’s Fables, is of particular relevance today and serves as a reminder that human moral codes and social mores draw on anthropocentric conceptions of non-human being. Wormell’s debt to White is evident in his decision to illustrate The Natural History and his work can also be understood in a long tradition of artistry and wood engraving, exemplified by our next case study.

Thomas Bewick (1753-1828) 

Thomas Bewick is a naturalist, illustrator, and printer who draws together various practitioners I have discussed, many of whom overlap in terms of chronology, discipline, and environmental engagement. As Ruth Ewan reveals in an audio essay on the subject, Against the Grain (undated), Thomas Bewick and Thomas Spence met in eighteenth-century Newcastle and became friends. Her essay presents both men as innovative artists; one whose legacy was protected, the other whose ideas were obliterated. Ewan invites listeners to see Bewick as a political animal and discover the obscured figure of Spence, an essential and provocative voice from the past whose significance and influence I have already outlined (for a link to Ewan’s essay see Works Cited).

Bewick is renowned for his editions of Aesop’s Fables (1776, 1784, 1818) and revisited them throughout his life. His Aesop woodcuts are steeped in careful rendering of the natural world, such as this closely observed illustration for ‘The Hare and the Tortoise’ in The Fables of Aesop, and Others (1818). The common ground shared by Bewick, White, and Wormell is evident here.

In terms of nature writing, Bewick is perhaps best known for The History of British Birds (1797, 1804). However he also published a popular collection for children, A General History of Quadrupeds (1790). Detailing 260 mammals, this volume is the source of Bewick’s ‘Tiger’ and ‘Mouse’, used to illustrate earlier sections of this paper. It is no surprise to learn from Ewan that Bewick and Spence’s radical leanings included a dislike of animal mistreatment, and they collaborated on a pamphlet entitled ‘On Tenderness to Animals’ in Real Reading-Made-Easy (1782). An important point to take from this is that while Bewick’s influence in the visual arts is well established, his work also plays an important role (alongside Spence) in embedding the seeds of ecological activism in the materials of childhood cultur – seeds that have continued to grow and re-seed over the years. 

Conclusion and Voices of the Future-Present

I must cut short my discussion of more recent practitioners who draw on the natural historical aspects and ecological influence of works by Aesop, Barbauld, Spence, White, or Bewick, as they continue to shape the development of environmentally aware children’s literature in the twenty-first century. During my talk, I moved on to discuss Beatrix Potter (1866-1943), whose commitment to visual culture, nature writing, science, farming, and environmental politics are all at play in her little books. My focus on Potter was followed by consideration of work by Charles Tunnicliffe (1901-1971, including his illustrative contribution to Ladybird books, Brook Bond Tea Cards, and various publications of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB). Finally, I outlined the influence of Richard Adams’ Watership Down (1972) on environmental youth activism in the late twentieth century and reflected on the fact that this mantle has been taken up by young ‘eco-warriors’ of the twenty-first century.

By way of closing my lecture I turned to the eloquent and forceful words of young activists, Dara McAnulty and Mya-Rose Craig as expressed in The Diary of a Young Naturalist (McAnulty, 2019) and Bird Girl: Discovering the Power of our Natural World (Craig, 2022/2023). For the purpose of drawing together the threads of this published version of my address, I hand over to Craig:

‘When I was  seventeen, in 2020, I was invited to share the stage with the Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, at the Bristol Youth Strike 4 Climate rally…While the conservation projects of our birds and wildlife remain priorities for me, in front of an audience of 40,000 I spoke about those without a voice: on behalf of Indigenous Peoples removed from their ancestral lands in the name of conservation, and regarding the injustices visited upon the global south in the name of climate change action. I found my own voice as a young teenager and, while the journey feels much longer than the space of a few years, it is a voyage I intend to remain on’ (Craig, 2022/2023: 4).

Craig’s commitment to exposing injustice – to uncover and confront the political remit of environmental work –  another way of making visible the invisible.Thus, Craig’s voyage moves her into a future of her own making, while also connecting her with a historical past in which Aesop speaks and is made visible by Agard to all who would listen and observe narrowly. 

Works Cited

Agard, John. 2008.The Young Inferno (illus. S. Kitamura). London: Frances Lincoln Children’s Books.   

Barbauld,  Anna Laetitia. 1773. ‘The Mouse’s Petition’. Poems, Third Edition, corrected. London: Printed for Joseph Johnson, in St. Pauls’ Church-Yard. 

Bellanca, Mary Ellen. 2003. ‘Science, Animal Sympathy, And Anna Barbauld’s ‘The Mouse’s Petition’’.  Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol. 37, no. 1, 47-67.

Beauvais, Clémentine. 2015. The Mighty Child: Time and power in children’s literature. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 

Bewick, Thomas. 1800. A General History of Quadrupeds. Newcastle upon Tyne, S. Hodgson, R. Beilby, & T. Bewick. First published in 1790.

Bewick, Thomas. 1818. The Fables of Aesop, and Others. Newcastle upon Tyne, E. Walter for T. Bewick. 

Craig, Mya-Rose. 2023. Bird Girl: Discovering the power of our natural world. First published 2022.

Grenby, Matthew. 2016. ‘Thomas Spence, Children’s Literature and ‘Learning…Debauched by Tradition’’. Liberty, Property and Popular Politics: England and Scotland, 1688-1815. Essays in Honour of H.T. Dickinson. Eds. Gordon Pentland and Michael T. Davis. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. 131-146.

Liebregts, Peter. 2010. ‘Forward’. The Literary Utopias of Cultural Communities 1790-1910. Eds. Margurite Corporaal and Evert Jan Van Leewen. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi. 1-8. 

Newbery, John. 1765. The Lilliputian Magazine, or, The young gentleman and lady’s golden library.London: Printed for the Society and published by John Newbery.

Sainsbury, Lisa. 2021. Metaphysics of Children’s Literature: Climbing Fuzzy Mountains. Bloomsbury: London.

Spence, Thomas. 1982. ‘The Rights of Infants’. Pigs’ Meat: Selected Writings of Thomas Spence. Ed. G.I. Gallop. Nottingham: Spokesman. 114-126. First published 1797.

White, Gilbert. 1789. The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne 1768-93.

URL Links

Ewan, Ruth. Undated. Against the Grain: A project by Ruth Ewan. Last accessed 23/07/25. https://www.ruthewan.com/against-the-grain/

Gilbert White House (GWH), 2025. ‘Who was Gilbert White?’ URL: https://gilbertwhiteshouse.org.uk/gilbert-white/ (last accessed 23/07/25)

V&A record for Eric Ravilious Woodcut for Gilbert White’s The Natural History of Selborne. Last accessed 23/07/25. https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1035759/the-natural-history-of-selborne-print-ravilious-eric/

Lisa Sainsbury is Associate Professor of Children’s Literature at the School of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, University of Roehampton. She is Series Editor of Bloomsbury’s Perspectives on Children’s Literature and Chair of the UK’s National Community of Researchers in Children’s Literature (NCRCL). Ongoing research focusses on the philosophical remit of children’s books, as explored in her monographs—Ethics and British Children’s Literature: Unexamined Life (Bloomsbury: 2013) and Metaphysics of Children’s Literature: Climbing Fuzzy Mountains (Bloomsbury: 2021). Lisa has a particular interest in environmental ethics and eco-ontologies, as reflected in her current work on Richard Adams’ Watership Down (1972) and the module she teaches on ‘Ecology, Environment, and Youth Culture’ for the MA Children’s Literature at Roehampton.