• Related work
• Organisation

Ecological books for children and young adults have received a significant boost in recent years and have become an integral part of the literary offerings for the young target group. Numerous forms and manifestations of the genre differ but also have essential overlaps. This article is intended to provide an overview of various forms and characteristics of ecological fiction books for children and young adults. This article defines the lines of Mikota's (2017) distinction between texts on ecological enlightenment and dystopias, which represents a shortening of Lindenpütz's (1999, 2000) classification, mostly used in the research literature. This distinction of ecological books for young readers is also accompanied by a variance in the text's intention. While the texts on ecological education aim to sensitize readers to environmental protection, dystopias are intended to illustrate the consequences of ecological life and thus act as warning literature. Accordingly, the stories and their setting in the work, as well as the conveyance of ecological knowledge, differ due to the varying focus. This is illustrated using one belletristic book for each of the two categories.

Die Beiträge des Bandes beruhen zum Großteil auf den gehaltenen Vorträgen, setzen aber zum Teil einen anderen Fokus: Workshop "Exploring Eco-Discourses – eine interdisziplinäre Research School", 09.10.2023-11.10.2023, Darmstadt, Germany.