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<p>This article argues for an eco-aspirational turn in children’s fiction, a literary mode that intertwines field-informed knowledge and sensory attunement to animal lives with the agential growth of child characters. This mode develops in tandem with the methodological aims of multispecies ethnography, since narrative techniques and ethnographic commitments to situated realism are mutually enabling. Through a close reading of representative texts, including Sara Pennypacker's <i>Pax </i>(2016) and Xiangnv's <i>Mengbao Xiaoxiang</i> (2022), this study demonstrates how children’s wildlife mobility fiction transforms ethnographic impulse into affectively compelling stories through scene-based observation, species-specific detail, and field-inflected description. It concludes by proposing a framework for eco-aspirational children’s fiction, which synthesizes post-anthropocentric ethics with specific narratological strategies to foster eco-agency and a sense of actionable kinship for young readers.</p>

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Eco-aspirational Children’s Fiction as Multispecies Ethnography

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年5月23日

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  • Chengcheng You

摘要

This article argues for an eco-aspirational turn in children’s fiction, a literary mode that intertwines field-informed knowledge and sensory attunement to animal lives with the agential growth of child characters. This mode develops in tandem with the methodological aims of multispecies ethnography, since narrative techniques and ethnographic commitments to situated realism are mutually enabling. Through a close reading of representative texts, including Sara Pennypacker's Pax (2016) and Xiangnv's Mengbao Xiaoxiang (2022), this study demonstrates how children’s wildlife mobility fiction transforms ethnographic impulse into affectively compelling stories through scene-based observation, species-specific detail, and field-inflected description. It concludes by proposing a framework for eco-aspirational children’s fiction, which synthesizes post-anthropocentric ethics with specific narratological strategies to foster eco-agency and a sense of actionable kinship for young readers.