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Common worlds' is a conceptual framework developed to reconceptualise inclusion in early childhood communities. Common worlds take account of children's relations with all the others in their worlds-including the more-than-human others. The ethics and politics of living together in these common worlds is the central concern of this article. The article begins by charting the interdisciplinary scholarship that has inspired the development of this worlds framework. In particular, the authors acknowledge those feminist relational theorists and philosophers who have helped then to de-centre their understandings of the human (and hence the child), and to refresh their thinking about human/more-than-human relations. Place is also pivotal to an understanding of common worlds, as it is the locus of human and more-than-human differences and relations. In the second half of the article, the authors build upon the traditions of place-attuned pedagogies to suggest that common worlds, like places, are inherently pedagogical. They propose that common worlds is both a generative framework for reconceptualising childhood, and a pedagogical opportunity for practising a politically attuned and non-human-centric ethics of inclusion within early childhood. Prelude By way of setting the scene of 'children's common worlds', we briefly recount the story and imagery of The Hidden Forest, a children's picture book written and illustrated by Jeannie Baker (2000). Set in a cold-water Australian marine environment off Tasmania's east coast, the book tells the story of Ben's encounters with the 'hidden' and mysterious undersea-world of Giant Kelp forests. The exquisitely crafted and naturalistic collaged pictorial images are a feature of this book. They viscerally reinforce the highly sensory and affective journey that Ben undertakes as he ventures 'under the waves', 'to see the world' of the seaweed forest communities. Most importantly, the story reveals how Ben's encounters within this 'dark, tangled world of the weed' afford him a very different way of seeing the world. Ben often catches 'tiddlers' in his fish trap in the bay from the safety of his small dinghy, but he avoids going into the water. He is quite anxious about touching the 'slimy' seaweed that covers the surface of the bay, and fantasises about what might be 'lurking below'. Early in the story, Ben falls into the sea while he is yanking at the rope of his tangled fish trap, and his 'dinghy flips from under him'. In the seaweedy water, Ben wrestles with his fear. 'He is afraid some unknown creature will grab his legs as he scrambles back into the dinghy'. He tries to row away, but in his panic, it seems as if 'the kelp clings to his oars and won't let him go'. Eventually Ben manages to row out of the kelp and to calm down, but in order to retrieve the tangled trap, he calls on his friend Sophie who is a strong diver and not afraid of swimming in these waters. Sophie agrees to help on the condition that Ben will come and 'see the world under the waves with her'. Ben is anxious ...

This interdisciplinary article draws upon human geography to bring fresh new perspectives to the relationship between two commonly conflated concepts: ‘childhood’ and ‘nature’. Childhood studies scholars have gone a long way towards retheorizing childhood beyond the ‘natural’ and the ‘universal’ by pointing to its historical and cultural construction. However, as yet, not enough attention has been paid to childhood’s key collateral term, nature. This article seeks to redress this gap by drawing upon interesting retheorizings of nature that have taken place within human geography in order to suggest new ways of reconceptualizing childhood.