Scholarly studies about the use of books by and about African-American children and young adults in classrooms across the United States.

This landmark volume is the first to bring together leading scholarship on children’s and young adult literature from three intersecting disciplines: Education, English, and Library and Information Science. Distinguished by its multidisciplinary approach, it describes and analyzes the different aspects of literary reading, texts, and contexts to illuminate how the book is transformed within and across different academic figurations of reading and interpreting children’s literature. Part one considers perspectives on readers and reading literature in home, school, library, and community settings. Part two introduces analytic frames for studying young adult novels, picturebooks, indigenous literature, graphic novels, and other genres. Chapters include commentary on literary experiences and creative production from renowned authors and illustrators. Part three focuses on the social contexts of literary study, with chapters on censorship, awards, marketing, and literary museums. The singular contribution of this Handbook is to lay the groundwork for colleagues across disciplines to redraw the map of their separately figured worlds, thus to enlarge the scope of scholarship and dialogue as well as push ahead into uncharted territory.

In this book the authors describe their strategies for critically reading global and multicultural literature and the range of procedures they use for critical analyses. They also reflect on how these research strategies can inform classrooms and children as readers. Critical content analysis offers researchers a methodology for examining representations of power and position in global and multicultural children’s and adolescent literature. This methodology highlights the critical as locating power in social practices by understanding, uncovering, and transforming conditions of inequity. Importantly, it also provides insights into specific global and multicultural books significant within classrooms as well as strategies that teachers can use to engage students in critical literacy.

The Situationist International (SI) was a Paris-based artistic and political avant-garde group that formed in 1957, went through three distinct phases during its existence, and dissolved in 1972. In 1967, SI leader Guy Debord published his book The Society of the Spectacle, which presents his theory of how “the Spectacle” (i.e., the Capitalist system in its totality) works endlessly (though not always successfully) to transform people into spectators whose sole purposes are to consume commodities and to live de-politicized, passive, isolated, and contemplative lives. To challenge and subvert “the Spectacle,” Debord and his SI associates theorized and practiced the anti-spectacular critical art they called “detournement,” which entails reusing existing artistic and mass-produced elements to create new combinations or ensembles. As Debord wrote in 1956, detournement has the potential to be “a powerful cultural weapon in the service of real class struggle.” In this edited book, the authors contribute chapters about how they created their own detournements and used them as central audio-visual texts in critical projects that they designed and carried out in a variety of pedagogical situations. Most of the projects involved preservice teachers in teacher education courses, and the anti-spectacular purposes include challenging Hollywood’s problematic representations of Native Americans, subverting the racist stereotypes of Latin@s in a popular children’s book, and critiquing the neoliberal agenda of the charter school movement. This book offers readers detailed accounts of pedagogical projects that can serve as examples of the critical possibilities of detournement.

This edition of Multicultural and Ethnic Children’s Literature in the United States addresses both quantitative and more qualitative changes in this field over the last decade. Quantitative changes include more authors, books, and publishers; book review sources, booklists, and awards; organizations, institutions, and websites; and criticism and other scholarship. Qualitative changes include: More support for new and emerging writers and illustrators; Promotion of multicultural literature both in the U.S. and around the world, as well as developments in global literature; Developments in the literatures described throughout this book, as well as in research supporting this literature; The impact of technology; Characteristics and activities of four adult audiences that use and promote multicultural children’s literature, and Changes in leaders and their organizations. This is still a single reference source for busy and involved librarians, teachers, parents, scholars, publishers, distributors, and community leaders. Most books on multicultural children’s literature are written especially for teachers, librarians, and scholars. They may be introductions to the literature, selection tools, teaching guides, or very theoretical books on choosing, evaluating, and using these materials. Multicultural and Ethnic Children’s Literature in the United States focuses much more on the history of the development of this literature, from the nineteenth century to the present day. This book provides much more of a cultural and political context for the early development of this literature. It emphasizes the “self-determining” viewpoints and activities of diverse people as they produce materials for the young. Multicultural and Ethnic Children’s Literature… describes organizations, events, activities, and other contributions of diverse writers, illustrators, publishers, researchers, scholars, librarians, educators, and parents. It also describes trends in the research on the literature. It elaborates more on ways in which diversity is still an issue in publishing companies and an extended list of related industries. It describes related literature from outside of the U.S. and makes connections to traditional global literature. Last, Multicultural and Ethnic Children’s Literature, shows the impact of multiculturalism on education, libraries, and the mainstream culture, in general. While the other books on multiculturalism focus on how to find, evaluate, and use multicultural materials, especially in schools and libraries, this book is concerned over whether and how books are produced in the first place and how this material impact the broader society. In many ways, it supplements other books on multicultural children’s literature.

A major new history of the literary traditions, oral and print, of African-descended peoples in the United States.

A study of how rhetoric has shaped the life stories of African American role models in children's literature In Children's Biographies of African American Women: Rhetoric, Public Memory, and Agency Sara C. VanderHaagen examines how these biographies encourage young readers to think about themselves as agents in a public world. Specifically VanderHaagen illustrates how these works use traditional means to serve progressive ends and thereby examines the rhetorical power of biography in shaping identity and promoting public action. Drawing on scholarship in rhetoric, memory studies, and children's literature, VanderHaagen presents rhetorical analyses of biographies of three African American women—poet Phillis Wheatley, activist Sojourner Truth, and educator-turned-politician Shirley Chisholm—published in the United States during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. VanderHaagen begins by analyzing how biographical sketches in books for black children published during the 1920s represent Wheatley and Truth. The study then shifts to books published between 1949 and 2015. VanderHaagen uses a concept adapted from philosopher Paul Ricoeur—the idea of the "agential spiral"—to chart the ways that biographies have used rhetoric to shape the life stories of Wheatley, Truth, and Chisholm. By bringing a critical, rhetorical perspective to the study of biographies for children, this book advances the understanding of how lives of the past are used persuasively to shape identity and encourage action in the contemporary public world. VanderHaagen contributes to the study of rhetoric and African American children's literature and refocuses the field of memory studies on children's biographies, a significant but often-overlooked genre through which public memories first take shape.

"This book explores the period's vigorous exchange about the nature and identity of black childhood and uncovers the networks of African American philosophers, community activists, schoolteachers, and literary artists who worked together to transmit black history and culture to the next generation."--Jacket.

Contributions by Jani L. Barker, Rudine Sims Bishop, Julia S. Charles-Linen, Paige Gray, Dianne Johnson-Feelings, Jonda C. McNair, Sara C. VanderHaagen, and Michelle Taylor Watts The Brownies’ Book occupies a special place in the history of African American children’s literature. Informally the children’s counterpart to the NAACP’s The Crisis magazine, it was one of the first periodicals created primarily for Black youth. Several of the objectives the creators delineated in 1919 when announcing the arrival of the publication—“To make them familiar with the history and achievements of the Negro race” and “To make colored children realize that being ‘colored’ is a beautiful, normal thing”—still resonate with contemporary creators, readers, and scholars of African American children’s literature. The meticulously researched essays in A Centennial Celebration of "The Brownies’ Book" get to the heart of The Brownies’ Book “project” using critical approaches both varied and illuminating. Contributors to the volume explore the underappreciated role of Jessie Redmon Fauset in creating The Brownies’ Book and in the cultural life of Black America; describe the young people who immersed themselves in the pages of the periodical; focus on the role of Black heroes and heroines; address The Brownies’ Book in the context of critical literacy theory; and place The Brownies’ Book within the context of Black futurity and justice. Bookending the essays are, reprinted in full, the first and last issues of the magazine. A Centennial Celebration of "The Brownies’ Book" illuminates the many ways in which the magazine—simultaneously beautiful, complicated, problematic, and inspiring—remains worthy of attention well into this century.

Be a part of the radical transformation to honor and respect Beautiful Brilliant Black Girls! This book is a collective call to action for educational justice and fairness for all Black Girls – Beautiful, Brilliant. This edited volume focuses on transforming how Black Girls are understood, respected, and taught. Editors and authors intentionally present the harrowing experiences Black Girls endure and provide readers with an understanding of Black Girls’ beauty, talents, and brilliance. This book calls willing and knowledgeable educators to disrupt and transform their learning spaces by presenting: Detailed chapters rooted in scholarship, lived experiences, and practice Activities, recommendations, shorter personal narratives, and poetry honoring Black Girls Resources centering Black female protagonists Companion videos illustrating first-hand experiences of Black Girls and women Tools in authentically connecting with Black Girls so they can do more than survive – they can thrive.