'Vi vill ha skogen kvar' : En ekokritisk läsning av träd och skog i fyra svenska bilderböcker från 2020-talet ; 'We Want the Forest to Remain' : An ecocritical reading of the depiction of trees and forests in four Swedish picturebooks from the 2020s

This thesis examines the depiction of trees and forests in four Swedish picturebooks – Sagan om den underbara familjen Kanin och rymdskeppet (Björnstjerna 2020), Furan (Adbåge 2021), Den lilla Spenatgumman (Widmark, Karinsdotter & Dziubak 2022) and Morsan är haffad (Sjölin & Bartilsson 2023). Based on ecocritical theory and with the Phyto-Analysis Map as a tool, I let the trees and the forests be the center of attention. The starting point of the analysis is questions about how the trees and forests in the iconotext are depicted in relation to the Antropocene as well as anthropocentric and ecocentric ideas. The study also examine how the trees and forests in the iconotext are depicted in relation to folk beliefs and Swedish forests of today. The analysis highlights traces of the Antropocene and unsustainable Swedish forestry in the picturebooks, as well as some romanticism and associations to both old and more modern folk beliefs about trees and forests. All four books convey an ecocentric message, but they do so in different ways, such as depictions of protagonists saving forests from being cut down or descriptions of humans and trees as kin. I argue that the antropomorphization of trees in picturebooks may lead the reader to adopt a more ecocentric way of thinking, but that it depends on the context, for example how the antropomorphization is performed and the reader’s experiences.