Fauna as Storied Matter for Trauma Recovery in the Children's Picture Book My Beautiful Birds (2017) by Suzanne del Rizzo

Abstract

The issue of ecological crisis and armed conflict within the landscape of contemporary children’s literature demands new critical approaches that can reposition narrative settings into more than acting as a passive background or inert entities. This study aims to analyze how the fauna in the children’s picture book My Beautiful Birds (2017) by Suzanne del Rizzo operates as a material agency within the process of trauma recovery. This research employs the framework of material ecocriticism developed by Iovino and Oppermann to examine how nonhuman material, specifically birds, functions as storied matter, integrated with Dominick LaCapra’s trauma theory to analyze the main character’s psychological development through the phases of acting-out and working-through. Although material ecocriticism has been applied across diverse media and literary genres, previous studies have rarely addressed the specific role of fauna as an active mechanism for trauma recovery. Employing a descriptive-qualitative method, the data were gathered through close-reading and note-taking techniques, categorized according to fauna as a repository of memory and trauma-healing mechanisms, and analyzed using narrative technique. The findings reveal that fauna acts dynamically as storied matter through its diversity of species and vibrant colors, which simultaneously preserve traumatic memory and facilitate psychological healing across acting-out and working-through processes. This study contributes to the broader discourse of children’s literature by establishing the narrative as an effective medium for psychological reconciliation facilitated by nonhuman material agency, while offering recommendations for future research to expand the analysis into visual elements to gain a deeper understanding of material agency in children’s texts.