Where the wild books are

What’s a common thread shared by “Peter Rabbit” and “Lord of the Rings,” “Harry Potter” and “Calvin and Hobbes,” “The Lorax” and “The Little Prince,” and “Where the Wild Things Are”? All these classics – along with vast swaths of children’s literature – have environmental themes. 

So argues Liam Heneghan, co-director of the Institute for Nature and Culture at DePaul University in Chicago, in his new book “Beasts at