Children, animals and great fun. Modyfications of animal folklore themes in Polish literature for children and young adults in cultural animal studies perspective

Abstract

One of the important elements of Professor Jerzy Cieślikowski’s theory of great fun is a child-animal relation. Realistic situations of children’s play with an animal according to Cieślikowski were sources of children’s folklore and literature. The author of paper proposes a new critical animal studies (CAS) for children’s literature studies. This new perspective allows to put hypothesis about new child-animal relations in literature, new ecologic education values and – what is most important – lead us to new ethics, by overcoming taboo of animal’s death and suffering in children’s literature.