Challenging Perceptions: A Post-Representational Reading of <i>The Fate of Fausto</i>

As the ‘greening’ of literature for children and young adults continues apace in a time of climate crisis, much research in the field adopts interpretative approaches that analyse representations of nature and the non-human in literature for children and young adults. This article adopts an alternative post -representational approach in its exploration of entanglements of materiality, aesthetics, and paratextuality in The Fate of Fausto by author–illustrator Oliver Jeffers. 1 I argue that The Fate of Fausto presents a performative, material-discursive space, demonstrating intra-actions between creator, process, product, and reader that transcend a limited representational analysis. I propose that this entangled analysis provides deeper insight into the transformative potential of visual literature in reshaping the young reader's perceptions of the world, and also demonstrates the efficacy of a post-representational approach in revealing such potential. The adoption of this approach could yield fruitful results in future ecocritical research on visual narratives for children and young adults.