Examination of Illustrated Children's Books on Natural Disasters

This study was conducted to examine illustrated children's books on natural disasters prepared for the early childhood period. To this end, a document review was conducted using criterion sampling, one of the purposive sampling methods, to determine the study group. Accordingly, 20 illustrated children's books were included in the study, and the “Illustrated Children's Books on Natural Disasters Evaluation Form” prepared by the researchers in accordance with the relevant literature was used in the examination of these books. Through this form, the books in the study group were examined under a total of four themes: physical, drawing, content, and language characteristics. The research data was coded using content analysis methods to create categories, and examples were presented in tables. According to the study findings, the physical features theme consisted of the categories of cover, design, dimensions, typography, target age group, and illustrations. The illustration features theme comprised the categories of description, dimensions, techniques, and character continuity. The content features theme comprised the categories of narration, geographical and cultural elements, handling of the disaster theme, characterization, age group relevance, and plot structure. The plot structure category comprised the subcategories of introduction, development, and conclusion. The language features theme consists of the categories of narration, grammar and punctuation, vocabulary related to disasters, and descriptive language. Considering the need to make children directly or indirectly sensitive to the subject of natural disasters and to inform them about what to do, the study recommends increasing the number of high-quality illustrated children's books published and conducting different studies on the effectiveness of these books.