What role does an animal play in a child's developing sense of self? This book addresses these and other intriguing questions by revealing the interconnected lives of the inhabitants of the preschool classroom with birds, turtles, bugs, and other creatures. This book will be delightful and rewarding for parents, educators, and students of early childhood social development, as well as scholars of the intersection of human experience and the natural environment.
Preface to the Revised Edition
Preface to the First Edition
I Introduction: The Sense of Connection
II Childhood Animality and Development: Child and Animal in Culture and Theory
III An Ecology of Subjects: Animals and the Child’s Self
IV The Immediate Other: Animate Relating
V The Creature That Connects: Sharing Feelings, Words, and Minds
VI Pretend Play: Self as Human, Self as Animal
VII The Animal in the Cultural Context of Development
VIII Conclusion
Appendix: Methods, Setting, and Subjects
Notes
References
Index