ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how picture books re-present the traumatic experience caused by the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and how significant they are as a healing apparatus. Since the earthquake, a number of picture books have published to express grief and bereavement and to criticize the aftermath of the disaster. They reconceptualize the experience and encourage a joint effort to rebuild the whole community. “Healing” is configured when “others” are present; or “healing” is shown when “collectiveness” is being introduced. Some of the selected works reiterate the disaster in an eye-witness approach, while some make use of animal characters to handle sensitive subjects like human fatality. Some works include an incarnation of the deceased and address ideas like vulnerability, abandonment, and impotence. Taking the picture books about the disastrous earthquake of Japan as an example, this chapter will delineate how picture books of natural disaster respond to and illustrate this issue in various manners while they also emphasize the sharing experience. A sense of recovery could be formulated through a reflection on the interconnection between the survivors, the survived, and the deceased, as well as humans and nature.
