Sea (after)lives, see other(lives) in children’s picturebooks

Strona wydawcy: https://www.wuj.pl

The article analyzes two picturebooks - S. Hole’s of Anna’s Heaven and K. Babis’ "Maja from The Moon", and animation for children "Song of the Sea", which deal with the diffi cult and painful experience in every child’s life - the illness and death of a family member and mourning for him. All the texts of culture in the existential journey of the heroes through life and deep inside themselves, they operate with magical realism. Crucial for all of them is the motif and the symbolism of the sea. The suggestiveness and imagination of miraculous aquatic, marine, oceanic, and cosmic worlds are manifested in the visual layer, which plays the most signifi cant role in the interpreter works. The images, that show the world of children’s imagination and emotions at all stages of experiencing the loss of a sister and/or mother by the main characters, which E. Kübler-Ross distinguished, are vital in analyzed text. The images, above all refer to the female, maternal symbolism of the waters characterized by G. Bachelard.