Children and animism

Regenerative Culture Birthing & Caring for Children
#1

Children seem to begin their lives as animists, but often lose this connection and start perceiving nature as inanimate by the time they start preschool or kindergarten. Can anyone here recommend any good books/stories suitable to read to kids that include an animistic point of view, that might be able to help inspire them to keep/re-enliven the awareness of and empathy with a living, sentient Nature?

We’re especially interested in chapter books that could be read as a chapter-a-night bedtime story to kids with enough patience for things like the Hobbit and the Golden Compass trilogy.

#2

The Birchbark House series is good. My daughter also likes The Secret Garden and My Side of the Mountain. There’s another good series called Wolf Brother.

#3

Ethel Cook Eliot’s “The House Above the Trees” and Keith and Chenoa Egawa’s “Tani’s Search for the Heart” are two of our favorites. A couple of others that spring to mind are picture books totally worth checking out: John Steptoe’s “The Story of Jumping Mouse” and Linda Atnip’s “Miranda’s Magic Garden.” Borrow our books anytime, Monica! xo

#4

" the education of little tree" the books by Rawlings like “The Yearling”, comes to mind… but beyond books are regular trips into the wild, hiking along an easy path for their little legs, seeing the animals and smelling the plants , touching the wild… observing the critters… this way they learn how they just are not a cartoon with no thoughts and no brain…that they are a thinking being. Even having a dog is big help… being able to play with a dog will teach them this critter is thinking.

Dude