Econarratives of care. Symbolic paths in children’s literature

Abstract

This essay investigates the role of children’s literature as a narrative and symbolic medium of care. Through close readings of canonical texts such as The Secret Garden, Heidi, Peter Pan, and Charlotte’s Web, it examines how nature – conceived as an archetypal space – enables processes of transformation, maturation, and self-articulation. These narratives function as vehicles for working through experiences of pain, abandonment, and loss, offering pathways to reestablish meaning and belonging. Engaging with pedagogical, ecofeminist, and narrative medicine frameworks, the article argues that care emerges not only thematically but also as an epistemological and methodological principle of storytelling itself. Narrative, in this context, is revealed as an existential, symbolic, and relational practice, capable of weaving connections between body, affect, and environment, and of articulating an ecology of childhood grounded in empathy, attentiveness, and reciprocity.