1st Edition
Representing Africa in Children's Literature Old and New Ways of Seeing
Representing Africa in Children’s Literature explores how African and Western authors portray youth in contemporary African societies, critically examining the dominant images of Africa and Africans in books published between 1960 and 2005. The book focuses on contemporary children’s and young adult literature set in Africa, examining issues regarding colonialism, the politics of representation, and the challenges posed to both "insiders" and "outsiders" writing about Africa for children.
Introduction:
Children’s Literature and Africa
Section 1: Image-making and Children’s Books
Chapter 1
Images of West Africa in Children’s Books: Replacing Old Stereotypes with New Ones?
Chapter 2
Illustrations and the Messages they convey: African Culture in Picture Books.
Chapter 3
The Typical West African Village Stories.
Section 2: Growing Up African and Female in Children’s Books
Chapter 4
Religion and Childhood in Two African Communities: Ogot’s The Rain Came and Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus.
Chapter 5
Revising Traditional Cultural Practices in Two Picture Book Versions of African Folktales.
Chapter 6
African Girls’ Sexuality in Selected Fiction for Young Adults
Chapter 7
Individual Healing vs. Communal Healing: Three African Females’ Attempts at Constructing Unique Identities.
Section 3: Reading African Cultural Survival in Children’s Books
Chapter 8
Reading Images of Resistance in Tom Feelings’ The Middle Passage.
Chapter 9
African Sites of Memory in Diasporic Children’s Literature.
Afterword
Chapter 10
When Illustrations by Africans Lack Visual Appeal, How Should African Readers React?
Chapter 11
Authenticity, Hybridity and Literature about African Children
Biography
Vivian Yenika-Agbaw is Associate Professor of literacy/children’s literature at The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, USA. She is an assistant editor of Sankofa: Journal of African and African American Children’s Literature and serves on the Children’s Africana Book Award Committee.
"Representing Africa is a text that I will gladly recommend and use in my own work."
- Barbara A. Lehman, Children's Literature Association Quarterly, Summer 2009, Vol. 34, No. 2
