Seeing disasters through the eyes of children: a critical reading of One Snowy Night and The Storm in the Barn through the lens of critical disaster studies

Disasters are life-changing events that children find frightening and unfathomable. Seen through the eyes of children, disasters are always enigmatic, thus stirring questions, such as what are they? What causes them? And how can they be confronted? Environmental works for children often feature disasters to help children understand the threats that their world is subjected to. Disasters are thus used as symbols through which writers can deliver moral and ecological lessons to the young audience/reader. In this comparative study, the representation of disasters will be examined in two environmental plays for children in which natural and environmental disasters impact the lives of the young protagonists: One Snowy Night (2007) and The Storm in the Barn (2012). The plays have been selected because, firstly, they have not been critically dealt with, to the best of my knowledge, and, secondly, they shed light on the immense impact of disasters on children. Through the element of fantasy, the disasters are personified to help children understand the symbiotic relation between humans and nature. By giving voice to the personified representations of disasters, children understand the environmental role humans can play: either mitigating or increasing the effects of disasters. Both works thus highlight how disasters are viewed in the eyes of children and how they impact their outlook of life and the environment (whether their hometowns or the natural world). Thus, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the portrayal of natural and environmental disasters through the lens of critical disaster studies shedding light on its key concepts and terms that are reflected in the plays.

Heidi Mohamed Bayoumy