The TALES initiative was hosted at the Natural History Museum of Friuli in Udine (Italy) in the summer of 2021. TALES, Telling and Listening to Ecosustainable Stories, organised a series of read-aloud sessions in English L2 for children from 6 to 9 years old.

During TALES events, volunteer students of the Teacher Education Section of the University of Udine read aloud picturebooks in English L2 about nature to involve children in communicative interaction and promote ecoliteracy and environmental education.

This experience led one of the student teachers, Elena Serino, to write her dissertation on picturebook selection criteria for ecoliteracy in English L2 for children. Elena created a list of non-fiction picturebooks in English for read-aloud sessions about nature. The main topics of the picturebooks selected by Elena are related to the research areas of the Natural History Museum of Friuli: palaeontology, zoology, entomology, botany, geology and atmospheric phenomena.