ABSTRACT
Flourishing (or wellbeing) has obvious ideological links with notions of self and how one functions well with other people and the world. An exploration of what it is to live well as an individual, and in connection with other people and the world has long been a central theme in children's literature. While flourishing and intersubjectivity are not the same, connected states are central to both. This chapter explores how the picturebooks that form the author's primary corpus illustrate contemporary ideas about wellbeing. It investigates how the body is imagined in two contemporary picturebooks as the primary site wherein the basic emotions are felt and expressed, so that an embodied, feeling connection is represented in the overall conceptualization of flourishing. While the picturebooks offer different views of flourishing and how a young child might experience it, both offer a view of good enough flourishing: it is sensitive and adaptive, and does not aim for perfection.
