§16§This volume presents key contributions to the study of ecocriticism in Nordic children's and YA literary and cultural texts, in dialogue with international classics. It investigates the extent to which texts for children and young adults reflect current environmental concerns. The chapters are grouped into five thematic areas: Ethics and Aesthetics, Landscape, Vegetal, Animal, and Human, and together they explore Nordic representations and a Nordic conception, or feeling, of nature. The textual analyses are complemented with the lived experiences of outdoor learning practices in preschools and schools captured through children's own statements. The volume highlights the growing influence of posthumanist theory and the continuing traces of anthropocentric concerns within contemporary children's literature and culture, and a non-dualistic understanding of nature-culture interaction is reflected in the conceptual tool of the volume: The Nature in Culture Matrix.§ §04§1. Introduction.- 2. §04§ 13. §02§Nina Goga is Professor in Children's Literature at Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Norway. She is leader of the research group Nature in Children's Literature and Culture and co-editor of Maps and Mapping in Children's Literature: Landscapes, seascapes and cityscapes (2017) with Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer.§ Lykke Guanio-Uluru is Associate Professor in YA Literature at Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Norway, where she researches literature and ethics with a particular focus on fantasy, the posthuman, and digital games. She is the author of Ethics and Form in Fantasy Literature: Tolkien, Rowling and Meyer (2015).§ Bjørg Oddrun Hallås is Professor in Physical Education at Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Norway, and co-editor of Natur og Danning (2015) with Gunnar Karlsen.§ Aslaug Nyrnes is Professor in Didactics of Literature and Fine Arts at Western Norway University o §02§f Applied Sciences, Norway, and Professor II in the Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design at the University of Bergen.
