African and African American Children’s and Adolescent Literature in the Classroom

Vivian Yenika-Agbaw, Associate Professor of Literacy/Children’s Literature at The Pennsylvania State University – University Park, has published articles in Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, The New Advocate, Language Arts, Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies, International Review of Education, and Bookbird: A Journal of International Children’s Literature, among others. Her most recent book is Representing Africa in Children’s Literature: Old and New Ways of Seeing. In addition, she is an assistant editor of Sankofa: Journal of African Children’s and Young Adult Literature, and she is currently serving on the editorial boards of Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy (JAAL) and Language Arts.Mary Napoli is Associate Professor of Reading and Children’s Literature at The Pennsylvania State University – Harrisburg, where she teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses in children’s and adolescent literature, language arts, and children’s literature and writing. Prior to working at the university level, Dr. Napoli taught kindergarten and first grade in the Pocono Mountain School District. Her research interests include the integration of multicultural literature across the curriculum and girls’ responses to popular cultural texts. She currently serves on the Notable Children’s Books in the Language Arts Committee and the National Council of Teachers of English Excellence in Poetry for Children Committee.

• Contents: Vivian Yenika-Agbaw/Mary Napoli: Introduction. Domestic and International Multiculturalism: Children’s Literature about Africans and African Americans – Ruth McKoy Lowery: Fathers Know Best: Traditional Families in Recently Published African American Children’s Literature for the Early Grades – Mary Napoli: Powerful Words: Celebrating Poetry with Young Children – Janet Helmberger: Representing Cultural Identity in Children’s Literature: Black Children in Their Communities – Patricia Crawford: Spirituality and Young Children: Literature as a Support for Resilience and Coping – April Whatley Bedford/Renée Casbergue: Sharing Culturally Relevant Literature with Preschool Children and Their Families – Shanetia Clark/Kimetta Hairston: «I Want My Mama!»: Young Black Adolescents Reading through the Grief – Rachel Grant: African American Female Literacies and the Role of Double Dutch in the Lives and Literature for Black Girls – Ann Berger-Knorr: Discrimination and Preadolescence: Two Readers’ Constructions – Linda T. Parsons/Michele D. Castleman: Daring to Dream: Characters in Coretta Scott King Author Award-Winning Books and Their Pursuits of the American Dream – Barbara Marinak: Representing Black Experiences: Engaging Hearts and Minds with Excellent Nonfiction Literature – Lewis Asimeng-Boahene: Riddles as Critical Thinking Tools: A Case of African Traditional Oral Literature in the Social Studies Classroom – Denise Jarrett: Reading «Black» Poverty in Postcolonial Anglophone Caribbean Young Adult Fiction: Michael Anthony’s The Year in San Fernando and Cyril Everard Palmer’s The Cloud with the Silver Lining – Corinna Crafton: Alternative Families in Young Adult Novels: Disrupting the Status Quo – Vivian Yenika-Agbaw: Disability in Africana Adolescent Literature – Lauren Lewis: Lessons on Discrimination: Historical Fiction and the Culture of Struggle – Barbara A. Ward/Deanna Day: Keeping Hope Alive: Reading and Discussing Adolescent Novels and Modern-Day Miracles – Tamara Lindsey: The Exoticizing of African American Children and of Children of Color: Care Work and Critical Literacy – Mary Napoli/Vivian Yenika-Agbaw: Afterword. Global Literacy: Implications for the Classroom.

«Culture is frequently reduced to a list of generalizations that do not fit anyone’s actual life within that cultural group. This book challenges these simplistic approaches to culture by exploring the complex and interconnected themes between and within African and African American cultures. This resistance of generalizations and focus on exploring the diversity of experiences and connections within a culture provides a generative example of the type of scholarship we need to move forward in the field of children’s and adolescent literature. Instead of the ‘one chapter per ethnicity’ model that has been most prevalent, we need in-depth inquiry that uncovers the complex ways of living and thinking within each culture as represented in literature. The authors of this book remind us that asking whether or not a book is authentic to a particular culture is only a first step. We also need to examine the issue of representation and whether the books available to children and adolescents reflect the actual diversity of experiences within that culture.» (Kathy G. Short, Director, Worlds of Words; Professor, Language, Reading & Culture, The University of Arizona; Past President, United States Board of Books for Young People, USBBY)