Children's and Young Adult Literature

By: Dianne Johnson-Feelings

Source:

 Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, Second Edition

Children's and Young Adult Literature

Literature by African American authors intended for children and young adults.

The American Library Association makes formal distinctions between children's literature and young adult literature as distinct categories, although they overlap. Literature for children commonly refers to illustrated books designed to be read aloud to nonreaders and those with text suitable for elementary school children. Literature for young adults includes books designed for readers from approximately ten through eighteen years old and deals largely, but not exclusively, with coming-of-age and identity issues. These categories are not always strict. Preadolescents often enjoy young adult titles and adults often enjoy illustrated texts. For example, Tom Feelings's Soul Looks Back in Wonder (1993), winner of the Coretta Scott King Award, is a picture book for teenagers. Artist James Ransome has illustrated James Weldon Johnson's folk sermon poetry collection God's Trombones (orig. 1927) in picture book form (1994). And in 1993, Jerry Pinkney illustrated Zora Neale Hurston's Harlem Renaissance classic novel Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), signaling the publisher's interest in expanding the market to include younger readers. Moreover, many artists write and/or illustrate in both categories. Joyce Carol Thomas is one example. Her Brown Honey in Broomwheat Tea (1994), suitable for all ages, is an illustrated collection of her poetry, while Marked by Fire (1982), winner of the American Book Award for a first novel, is for older readers. Certainly, there is a long tradition of teenagers being introduced to adult “classics” while still in high school. But since the genre of African American young adult literature began to develop in the 1970s, American educators have not always done a good job of integrating it into existing curricula. This is changing as critics and educators acknowledge that much young adult literature is itself classic and sophisticated enough for readers of all ages. A prime example is Mildred D. Taylor's Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry (1976), winner of the Newbery Medal, the highest honor in the world of American literature for young adults. This and the other books in her series that chronicles a land-owning African American family and their community in depression-era Mississippi should be considered indispensable reading.

Publishing companies tend to group children's literature and young adult literature into a single “children's literature” category. And despite the official distinction recognized by the American Library Association, in practice, “children's librarians” oversee both genres. The same situation exists in terms of scholarly work in the field. The major journals, which include Children's Literature Association Quarterly and Children's Literature, cover literature written for both children and young adults.

The histories of African American children's literature and young adult literature are so intertwined as to be almost inseparable. The creators of African American children's and young adult literature have all been engaged in the same battles with the publishing industry and other structures in this society to see that their art has the opportunity to flourish. African American children's and young adult literatures both have developed out of a respect for the power of literature to communicate with, inspire, and educate African American and other young people of every age. Those who have devoted their careers to their creation have a gift for speaking with and to the young without condescending to them and without underestimating their capacities for reflection or for appreciating beauty and honesty.

As with African American literature as a whole, the history of African American children's and young adult literature is still being discovered, still being written, and still being contested. Another primary issue in the definition of African American children's literature is the significance of race for writer, reader, and character. The term “African American literature” usually refers to the ethnic identity of the authors. The term “children's literature” refers to the audience. When the two terms are combined into “African American children's literature” the parameters of this third category are unclear. Over time not only have white authors been accepted as the creators of literature about or for African American young people but they have been encouraged to fill this role. Thus, literature with African American characters, whether aimed at a white, African American, or mixed audience, has been routinely categorized as African American. African American children's literature, for the purposes of this essay, however, is defined as literature created by African American authors and illustrators. Often, their intended audience is African American young people in particular. But on the whole, the literature exists for the enjoyment, education, and edification of any and all readers.

Historically, the temptation of most critics writing in the field has been to dwell on the literature with African American characters written by white American writers, whether aimed at an audience of African or European American youngsters, as if the author's racial or cultural experiences were neutral. More recently, more critics have begun to recognize that it is important to examine the stereotypes of black people appearing in popular literature largely because the development of African American children's literature is in part a response to that literature. A notable example is the prolonged debate that took place during the early 1980s in response to Margot Zemach's Jake and Honeybunch Go to Heaven (1982). Zemach's version of an African American folktale portrays a man and his mule being killed by a train and entering a heaven presided over by an African American god dressed like Uncle Sam and inhabited by angels eating barbeque. The jubilant Jake behaves like a “flying fool.” Zemach's stated purposes were to write a book for African American children that preserved their folklore and with which they could identify visually. Instead, what she produced was a book that was eventually banned or stored in closed reserves in many children's libraries because many believed it perpetuated stereotypical images of African American people.

Of course, there are numerous examples of racist or stereotypical imaging from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. For instance, the preeminent American magazine for young people was St. Nicholas (1873–1945), in the pages of which it was not uncommon to read such verses as “ten little niggers went out to dine, one choked his little self, and then there were nine.” W. E. B. Du Bois, Augustus Granville Dill, and Jessie Redmon Fauset, publishers and editors of the Brownies' Book, an early African American children's periodical, were almost certainly familiar with this publication and others when they decided to create their own. Likewise, there are more and more critics engaged in the process of reconstructing and discussing the history and significance of African American children's literature on its own terms.

The Brownies' Book was not the first publication for African American young people. Mrs. Amelia E. Johnson founded an eight-page monthly magazine entitled the Joy in 1887. In 1889 she wrote Clarence and Corinne, or God's Way and in 1894 The Hazeley Family, both books for young readers but with apparently European American protagonists. As critic Hortense Spillers suggests in her introduction to the Schomburg Library edition, the books are “packaged in the wrappings of ethnic neutrality.” This book was published by the white-administered American Baptist Publication Society. The Black-administered National Baptist Publishing Board began publishing Sunday School materials for African American youth in 1896. It wouldn't be at all surprising if future researchers and critics were to discover other materials from this era and from the arena of church presses.

But at this juncture, in addition to Johnson's work, only a few other early pieces have been identified. One of these is Paul Laurence Dunbar's collection of dialect poetry entitled Little Brown Baby (1895). There is some question about whether this book was designed by Dunbar for children or whether an editor had the idea to collect in one volume some of his poems that were suitable for children. Yet another early volume is entitled An Alphabet for Negro Children by Leila A. Pendleton. Though no date of publication is given, it is mentioned in the authors' notes in a volume entitled The Upward Path (1920). Silas X. Floyd's Floyd's Flowers, or Duty and Beauty for Colored Children was published in 1905. With various titles, this volume was printed in at least three editions through 1925.

Like Floyd's Flowers, The Upward Path was an anthology of poetry essays, short stories, folklore, biographical sketches, and drawings by prominent African American writers, educators, and other personalities of the time. It was compiled by Myron T. Pritchard, principal of the Everett School in Boston, and Mary White Ovington, Caucasian author and one of the founders of the NAACP. All of the illustrations were done by Laura Wheeler. The writers whose work is represented include Paul Laurence Dunbar, Angelina Weld Grimké, Azalia Hackley, Ruth Anna Fisher, Augusta Bird, Jessie Fauset, and W. E. B. Du Bois.

For a variety of reasons, the substantive development of African American children's and young adult literature began about 1920, the publication date of the Brownies' Book. For its time, it was quite a progressive magazine, even Pan-African in its philosophy. Dill, Du Bois, and Fauset were concerned about the negative images of African Americans both in fiction and in school materials. They wanted the children of their community to know that people of African descent had made significant contributions to world civilizations. Further, they consistently stressed the standards of beauty and aesthetic quality of people of African descent. With very few exceptions, the graphics in the Brownies' Book were by African American artists, a policy that the editors saw as their contribution to the development of “modern Negro art.” Du Bois, Dill, and Fauset advocated race pride, responsibility to the collective group, social uplift, and education.

The Brownies' Book, not unlike the volume The Upward Path, was problematic in certain ways. Foremost among them was the manifestation of class tensions. For example, there was the occasional short story in which the writer placed higher value on long hair and fair skin. Other contradictions were apparent in the attitudes of various writers toward Africa and understandings about the terms “civilization” and “culture.” But to the credit of the editors, they allotted space to different perspectives and opinions. And to the credit of the young readers, parents, and other interested adults, much debate went on in letters and other submissions.

Unlike the Brownies' Book, which welcomed discussion of difficult issues both in the United States and around the world, Ebony Jr! (1973–1985), published by the Johnson Publishing Company in Chicago, emphasized positive representations of African Americans. Contributors were asked not to submit materials that dealt with topics such as death, violence, or religion. Despite this weakness, Ebony Jr! made a definite contribution to literature for African American children. It was an arena in which children could regularly read poetry and stories written by African American writers, strengthen their own verbal skills through using the exercises provided, and see visual images of African Americans. Just as the Brownies' Book was a place for younger writers such as the teenage Langston Hughes to get published, Ebony Jr! encouraged young writers through their regular writing contests.

The Brownies' Book and Ebony Jr! are part of a tradition of African American children's and young adult literature, defined in broad terms to include periodical literature, anthologies, poetry, novels, historical fiction, picture books, and biography. In particular, they are part of a tradition of independent African American publishing. In addition to the Brownies' Book, Du Bois & Dill Publishing Company also published a collection of biographies written by E. Haynes entitled Unsung Heroes (1921) and J. Henderson's A Child's Story of Dunbar (1921). Noted scholar Carter G. Woodson later formed Associated Publishers, which published both literature and school texts. Associated Publishers' titles are many, including J. Schackleford's The Child's Story of the Negro (1938), Woodson's own The Negro in Our History (1922), African Heroes and Heroines (1939) and Wilfrid D. Hambly's Talking Animals (1949).

During the early years, Arna Bontemps and Langston Hughes were the only African American writers for children with consistent access to the mainstream publishing industry. Hughes's The Dream Keeper, a collection of poetry suitable for children, was published in 1932 and again in 1962. The 1994 edition, which includes seven additional poems, substitutes artist Brian Pinkney's scratchboard illustrations for the original drawings by Helen Sewell. Bontemps and Hughes's joint effort, a short novel entitled Popo and Fifina (1932), was first published in 1932 also. It too appears in a new edition (1993) as part of Oxford University Press's Iona and Peter Opie Library of Children's Literature. Bontemps had a long career in children's books. His Lonesome Boy (1955) was republished in 1988 by Beacon Press. Other important titles of Bontemps's include Sad-Faced Boy (1937), the first “Harlem story” for children; We Have Tomorrow (1945), a collection of biographies; and The Story of the Negro (1948). His extensive 1941 poetry anthology, Golden Slippers, is a classic.

For the most part, in the dominant European American publishing world the status of literature about African Americans remained insignificant from the 1930s through the 1950s, though there were fledgling efforts at change beginning in the 1940s. During this period some publishers decided to use photographs of African Americans in an effort to reduce the amount of controversy generated by offensive and stereotypical illustration. The industry would later do things such as simply color white characters brown instead of enlisting the talents of African American writers and illustrators. But no matter the form of the visual part of the books of the 1930s through the 1950s, with a few exceptions—such as Popo and Fifina, Ann Petry's animal story The Drugstore Cat (1949, 1988) and Gwendolyn Brooks's poetry collection Bronzeville Boys and Girls (1956)—the texts were based largely upon the premise that racial integration is one of the ultimate goals and ideals of American society.

To a great extent, this kind of literature was targeted to white audiences, with the implied or sometimes blatant message that people should be colorblind, that all people are the same underneath the skin. Likewise, this category of literature said to African American youth that “white” is ideal and to be aspired to. It almost invariably suggested that the overriding majority of white people are “good” and that if “the Negro” allied with them, the “bad” elements could be overcome. Thus, most of the children's literature of the 1940s and 1950s that included African American characters at all was paternalistic toward them and completely ignored the existence of institutionalized racism. There are countless books that tell the stories of “Negroes” who, because of hard work and good faith, achieve their goals of being the first African American student at a particular school, to hold a particular job, or the like. These books are written in a manner that deemphasizes the social impact of racism and stresses the virtues of personal responsibility regardless of social or political context.

Jesse Jackson, Jr. was the most notable African American writer for young adults during the 1940s to participate in this kind of “integrationist” literature. His Call Me Charley (1945) confronts the racial bigotry ingrained in this society through the character of a twelve-year-old boy who learns that because of his race he is not welcome to use public facilities. Lorenz Graham, W. E. B. Du Bois's brother-in-law, examined similar themes in his series that includes South Town (1958), North Town (1965), Whose Town (1969), and Return to South Town (1976). But as James A. Miller points out (“Black Images in American Children's Literature” in Masterworks of Children's Literature, 1986), Return to South Town might indicate Graham's feeling that integration may not have been, or is not, the answer to the issues he was attempting to address in South Town almost twenty years earlier. The value of this work, however, is that it is not about African American people as objects but as individuals who have names and fully realized characterizations. It is written for African American and white audiences, rooted in the author's stance as an African American male.

In the 1960s and 1970s Lorenz Graham also wrote books in pidgin English, of which I, Momolu (1966) and Song of the Boat (1975) are two. Set in West Africa, these books are important because they represent the interest in the African diaspora that African American writers and illustrators of children's books have had throughout the history of his genre—an interest that is related to but separate from the stories that deal with American race relations. Another important example of this interest in “African heritage” is Muriel and Tom Feelings' Moja Means One: Swahili Counting Book (1971). For this book, Tom became the first African American illustrator whose work was designated as a Caldecott Honor Book, one of the highest honors in the world of American children's literature. Illustration team Leo and Diane Dillon went on to win the Caldecott Medal two years in a row for Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears (1976), an African folktale, and Ashanti to Zulu (1977), an alphabet book based on African ethnic groups. John Steptoe's Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters (1988), another folktale set in Africa, is also a Caldecott Honor Book.

Generally, all of these books are nonthreatening to the European American publishing establishment. They are set outside the United States and so do not deal with issues such as slavery or American apartheid. When set in African societies, they generally avoid problematic issues. However, this is not always the case with African American children's literature.

Believing that African American children's literature would probably never be recognized for its full beauty, artistry, and range by mainstream organizations, some African American members of the American Library Association, including Glyndon Greer and Mabel McKissick, rallied for the creation of the Coretta Scott King Award. Established in 1970, this award recognizes outstanding contributions to children's literature by African American writers and illustrators. It has been the mechanism through which many African American artists have gained not only recognition by professionals in the field but widespread visibility by a larger public.

This gain, like all gains in the history of African American children's literature, was hard-won. Basically, except for Bontemps and the few others mentioned above, the literature was invisible until the change of political climate that accompanied the Civil Rights and “black is beautiful” movements. One of the most important stimulants to the publishing of African American literature, largely as a response to political agitation, was the federal government's commitment to provide funding to school districts to purchase books created by African Americans. Finally, the mainstream publishing industry felt an economic, if not philosophical, impetus to encourage artists from this community. In the late 1960s the Council on Interracial Books for Children began holding contests to help identify young artists, and more important, to encourage artists to consider careers in children's literature. The HarperCollins Center for Multicultural Children's Books, established in the 1990s, carries on the work of the council by matching established writers and illustrators from various American cultures—largely African American—with those who are new to children's books. A program with similar goals is sponsored by the Center for Multicultural Literature at the University of Wisconsin. Out of one of their contests came Michael Bryant's impressive first book, Our People (1994), illustrated by Angela Shelf Medaris.

The winner of the Council on Interracial Books for Children's first contest in 1968 was Kristin Hunter, whose The Soul Brothers and Sister Lou (1969) sold more than a million copies. Walter Dean Myers is arguably the most important writer to get his start during this time period. Since his first novel for young adults, Fast Sam, Cool Clyde and Stuff (1975)—named an American Library Association Notable Book—he has gone on to produce scores of books, both fiction and nonfiction, for all age groups. Among the many awards they have garnered are the Coretta Scott King Award for Motown and Didi and a Newbery Honor Award for Scorpions. The recipient of a 1994 American Library Association special lifetime achievement award, Myers is known especially for his stories about Harlem and its residents. Fallen Angels (1989), for example, is about the Vietnam War experiences of a teenage soldier from Harlem who begins to make connections between his life circumstances and those of other people of color throughout the world. Fallen Angels won the Coretta Scott King Award and was named both an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults and a Notable Children's Trade Book in the Social Studies.

Harlem is the setting of many books of the period spanning the late 1960s through the early 1980s. Louise Meriweather's Daddy Was a Numbers Runner (1970) is a poignant, realistic story of life in the urban north. Sharon Bell Mathis's Listen for the Fig Tree (1973) falls into the same category, but in addition to exploring urban African American life, the book has as its central character a blind girl. Such stories help expand the concepts of African American humanity replete with a whole host of experiences, not all of which are race related. In Mathis's story, Muffin incorporates into her worldview values she has learned from Black Muslims, from Christianity, and from the precepts of the Kwanzaa celebration.

June Jordan's His Own Where (1971) is a riveting love story of urban teens. As they discover the meaning of a romantic, caring relationship, young Buddy wrestles with his father's hospitalization and impending death and Angela copes with her parents' protectiveness. Its distinctiveness rests, however, not in its subject matter but in its experimental language. Often referred to as the first children's book written in Black English, His Own Where was in the vanguard of literature that helped to expand representations of African American people. The prolific Lucille Clifton, Pulitzer Prize–nominated poet, accomplished the same thing with her picture book texts. She used Black English when it fit a character and standard English when it fit another character and language from any- and everywhere along the English language continuum as appropriate.

Clifton's Everett Anderson series is especially effective in chronicling the sometimes simple, sometimes complex growing up process of an African American boy and his family, including his estranged father, his mother, the man who is to become his stepfather, and his half sister. These titles include Some of the Days of Everett Anderson (1970) and the book in which the young child deals with his father's death, Everett Anderson's Goodbye (1983). One of Rosa Guy's young adult series set in New York City consists of The Friends (1973), Ruby (1976), and Edith Jackson (1978), three novels that explore the coming-of-age of female characters. The main characters in The Friends are a West Indian family trying to make a good life for themselves. Part of the importance of the book is that it explores what happens when Africans from different parts of the diaspora actually come into contact with one another, what happens to the ideas of sisterhood and brotherhood, what the “American dream” means to different people. Ruby was boldly innovative in exploring the lesbian relationship of two black teenagers. Guy was an innovator too with her Imamu Jones mysteries, which include The Disappearance (1979), New Guys around the Block (1983), and And I Heard a Bird Sing (1987). These two series and her recent examinations of middle-class African American life in books such as The Music of Summer (1992) all help to expand readers' notions about the range of material that is available to African American writers.

The prolific, talented, award-winning Virginia Hamilton is another author who has written in many genres. The Magical Adventures of Pretty Pearl (1983) is a mix of legend, history, and mythology in which Pretty Pearl, a god-child from Africa, comes via a slave ship to America with her brother, Jon de Conquer. The People Could Fly (1985) is a folklore collection. Justice and Her Brothers (1978) and its sequels are science fiction. She has written biographies of both W. E. B. Du Bois and Paul Robeson as well as Anthony Burns: The Defeat and Triumph of a Fugitive Slave (1988), advertised as a historical reconstruction. Her realistic fiction is original and thought provoking. M. C. Higgins, the Great (1974) was honored by several awards, including the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award and the Newbery Medal. But in some ways, the most “important” of Hamilton's books is The House of Dies Drear (1974). It is based upon the experiences of the fictional family of an African American history professor after they move into a house that was once a part of the Underground Railroad. Its significance lies in the way that it brings alive the subject of history—recovering it, rewriting it, and reconceptualizing it.

Historical (re)visioning has been a major preoccupation of writers of African American children's and young adult literature throughout its existence. Today, this concern has resulted in several significant patterns. First, there are a large number of books set during slavery. Preeminent among these is Julius Lester's To Be a Slave (1968), illustrated by Tom Feelings. Lester revised certain slave narratives, modernized punctuation and dialect spellings, and constructed them as a collection divided into useful sections, including “The Auction Block,” “Resistance to Slavery,” and “After Emancipation.” He provides context throughout and includes an extensive bibliography. Designated as a Newbery Honor Book, the volume is still used extensively in high schools. Equally exciting is his 1981 This Strange New Feeling, ingeniously conceptualized as a collection of love stories set during slavery—quite a hook to gain the interest of teenagers.

Joyce Hansen's Which Way Freedom? (1986) and its sequel, Out from This Place (1988), explore slavery and Reconstruction in an all African American community in South Carolina. Hansen's The Captive (1994), in contrast, is set first in West Africa and then in Puritan New England. There the fictional main character's story becomes intertwined with that of Paul Cuffe, the historical figure remembered for building ships for the purpose of returning former slaves to Africa.

Several picture books deal with slavery on a level that is appropriate for readers of picture books. Writer-illustrator Dolores Johnson does this with Now Let Me Fly (1993). Its one shortcoming is, perhaps, that it is somewhat simplistic in depicting African complicity in the slave trade. To Johnson's credit, her story includes the role of Native American communities in providing refuge for escaped slaves. Perhaps the most well-known picture book about slavery is Jacob Lawrence's Harriet and the Promised Land (1968, 1993). Bold, strong, and ugly, as slavery is ugly, it is the story of Harriet Tubman and her mission to deliver numbers of her people out of slavery.

Harriet not only belongs to the literature of slavery but it is also part of a tendency in African American children's literature to concentrate on biography. This is partly because of the sentiment, early expressed by Du Bois, that “the Negro has had little chance to be great, heroic, or beautiful” (Brownies' Book, 1920). Biography helps to demonstrate that all of these qualities belong to African people in the United States and elsewhere, a message expressed consistently in both picture books and young adult novels. Some examples of the former are illustrator Will Clay's The Real McCoy (1993), about the inventor Elijah McCoy, and Andrea Davis Pinkney and Brian Pinkney's Alvin Ailey (1993).

James Haskins is the foremost writer of biography for young people. He has written dozens of life stories, ranging from James Van Der Zee: The Picture-Takin' Man (1979) to The Magic Johnson Story (1980) to Barbara Jordan (1977). He has also written the stories of American and African American cultural institutions. These include Street Gangs: Yesterday and Today (1977), The Statue of Liberty: America's Proud Lady (1986), The Cotton Club (1977), and Black Theater in America (1982).

Patricia C. McKissack, another outstanding biographer, is also an accomplished writer of fiction. Mirandy and Brother Wind (1988), illustrated by Jerry Pinkney, is a favorite of book lovers. McKissack's biographies include the stories of Michael Jackson, Frederick Douglass, Paul Laurence Dunbar, and Mary McLeod Bethune. Along with her husband, Frederick McKissack, she has coauthored, among other titles, Taking a Stand against Racism and Racial Discrimination (1990) and A Long Hard Journey: The Story of the Pullman Porter (1989). Biography can give young people the misleading impression that African American history consists simply of the contributions of successful individuals to society. Biographies by McKissack and Haskins place the lives of individuals into larger social, cultural, and economic contexts.

Yet another tradition within African American children's literature consists of visual artists, artist-writers, and writers thought of as “adult artists” contributing to the development of children's literature. The visual artists include Elton Fax, Ernest Circhlow, E. Simms Campbell, and Romare Bearden. Newer artists now entering the field include Synthia St. James, Brenda Joysmith, Jonathan Green, and Kathleen Atkins Wilson, who won the 1991 Coretta Scott King Award for David A. Anderson's The Origin of Life on Earth. Faith Ringgold, known primarily as a quilt artist, is now translating that art into titles such as Tar Beach (1991) and Dinner at Aunt Connie's House (1993). Illustrator Jan Spivey Gilchrist made her debut as an author-artist with Indigo and Moonlight Gold (1993).

In addition to Langston Hughes and Gwendolyn Brooks, other recognizable “adult” writers have contributed to children's literature. Ann Petry wrote several picture book texts, and her Tituba of Salem Village (1964) and Harriet Tubman (1955) remain revealing and important. John O. Killens's Great Gittin' Up Morning: The Story of Denmark Vesey (1972) is a powerful story of that slave revolt leader. James Baldwin's Little Man, Little Man (1976) was publicized as a children's book for adults that is also an adult book for children. Novelist and playwright Alice Childress's riveting stories of teenage life in the urban north, A Hero Ain't Nothin' But a Sandwich (1973) and Rainbow Jordan (1981), are two landmark African American young adult novels.

A few have reshaped previously written pieces for children. Sherley Anne Williams, for example, teamed with veteran illustrator Carole Byard to produce the lyrical, matter-of-fact, powerful Working Cotton (1992) based on poetry from The Peacock Poems (1975). Alice Walker's first of two picture books, To Hell with Dying (1988), was based upon an earlier short story. Nikki Giovanni has packaged several collections of poetry for children, most notably Spin a Soft Black Song (1985). Her 1994 story, Knoxville, Tennessee, is beautiful in its simplicity. Simple and spare in a different way is Maya Angelou's 1994 children's book, Life Doesn't Frighten Me at All, an interpretation of the accompanying paintings by Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Eloise Greenfield is the foremost contemporary poet for young people. Honey, I Love (1978) and Daydreamers (1981), illustrated by Tom Feelings, are both classics. Acknowledging the fact that the form of the picture book is a true collaborative effort, Greenfield has very strong feelings, not shared by all African American writers, about who illustrates her books. She demonstrates her political and artistic ideals by having it written into her contracts that only African American artists can illustrate her words.

A full discussion of African American picture artists belongs elsewhere. But the artists who are now part of this tradition do deserve acknowledgement here. They include Jerry Pinkney, Leo Dillon, Ashley Bryan, Tom Feelings, John Steptoe, Pat Cummings, Carole Byard, Donald Crews, James Ransome, John Ward, Floyd Cooper, Will Clay, Jan Spivey Gilchrist, and Cheryl Hanna. George Ford, most recently illustrating several titles for Just Us Books Company, was the winner of one of the earliest (1974) Coretta Scott King awards for illustrating Sharon Bell Mathis's Ray Charles.

Jerry Pinkney is one of the most celebrated American children's book illustrators. He is known especially for his method of posing models, sometimes dressed in period costumes, and then working from photographs of them. In contrast to Pinkney, Tom Feelings is celebrated for his on-the-spot drawings of nonmodels and for his black-and-white work, which demonstrates that young people appreciate more than primary colors. He is both writer and illustrator of Tommy Traveler in the World of Black History (1991), drawn from a comic strip done for the New York Age newspaper in the 1960s. He is also the illustrator of what could be called adult picture books.

The illustration legacy established by these pioneers continues with artists such as Brian Pinkney, the son of Jerry Pinkney, and Javaka Steptoe, the son of John Steptoe, who are carrying on family traditions as well. Too, Brian Pinkney and Andrea Davis Pinkney have collaborated successfully on several picture book projects as have Jerry Pinkney and Gloria Jean Pinkney. The relationship between illustrations and texts is symbiotic. Visual artists help readers see the words in specific contexts.

In addition to treating the sometimes complex feelings of young people seriously, Candy Boyd's work is notable for its school settings and emphasis on the value of education. If there are such categories as boys' books and girls' books, Boyd works equally well in each. Chevrolet Saturdays (1993) is an example of the former; Breadsticks and Blessing Places (1985) is an example of the latter. Eleanora Tate's stories, which include The Secret of Gumbo Grove (1987) and Thank You, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1989), appeal to both young men and women. However, Tate suggests specifically that the value of her work rests in building the self-esteem of African American girls as they experience “rites of passage.” Her Just an Overnight Guest (1980) was made into a movie by Phoenix Films. Brenda Wilkinson's Ludell (1975) and its sequels comprise an excellent contemporary love story series. Mildred Pitts Walter writes for every age group. Part of the significance of her work rests too in the diversity of African American experiences it depicts. These range from Justin and the Best Biscuits in the World (1986), which invokes the legacy of African American cowboys, and Trouble's Child (1985), set in the Louisiana bayou. Patricia McKissack, Alice Childress, Kristin Hunter, Nikki Grimes, Alexis de Veaux, and Camille Yarbrough have also helped to shape this field.

Among several outstanding anthologies that are an important part of the literature are Dorothy Strickland's Listen Children: An Anthology of Black Literature (1982), which includes short selections of fiction, poetry, and drama; Joyce Carol Thomas's multiethnic A Gathering of Flowers: Stories about Being Young in America (1990), short stories representing various American ethnic groups; Tom Feelings's Soul Looks Back in Wonder (1993), for which writers ranging from Margaret Walker to Lucille Clifton to Haki R. Madhubuti wrote poetry; and Tonya Bolden's Riters of Passage: Stories about Growing Up by Black Writers from around the World (1994), representative of the entire African diaspora.

Among the newer writers whose work deserves attention are Vaunda Micheaux Nelson, Johnniece Marshall Wilson, Kay Brown, Valerie Wilson Wesley, Rita Williams-Garcia, Irene Smalls, Jacqueline Woodson, Belinda Rochelle, and Gloria Pinkney. Dolores Johnson is both a writer and an illustrator. Elizabeth Fitzgerald Howard's stories of middle-class African Americans are particularly compelling. Connie Porter is the author of Meet Addy (1993) and its sequels, the first stories of an African American character in the Pleasant Company's the American Girls Collection. Elizabeth Fitzgerald Howard's Aunt Flossie's Hats (and Crab Cakes Later) (1991), for example, describes an aunt who shares with her nieces a story connected with each hat she owns. Angela Johnson's children's books, among them Do Like Kyla (1990) and When I Am Old with You (1990), are simple, fluid, and moving. Set in the western United States, and with a grandmother figure who has grown dreadlocks, Johnson's first book for young adults, Toning the Sweep (1993) is sophisticated and revealing.

At this point in the history of African American children's and young adult literature, when children's literature in general is a thriving industry, more and more African Americans are the interpreters of their own stories. Walter Dean Myers, in particular, is at the height of his influence in the industry. His 18 Pine St. series, initiated in 1992 with Sort of Sisters, is created by Myers, but ghostwritten by Stacie Johnson. This project is the first of its kind for an African America. Another development is the U.S. publishing and distribution of the work of an increasing number of Afro-Caribbean, Afro-British, and Afro-Canadian children's authors. They include the prolific James Berry, Lynn Joseph, Marlene Nourbese Philip, and Merle Hodge.

Of the approximately five thousand children's books published each year, African American writers and illustrators are responsible for less than 4 percent of these titles. Some writers and scholars are fearful that if the multicultural movement fades, as did the “black is beautiful” movement, the scenario will worsen. Already many mainstream publishers arrogantly interpret multiculturalism to mean that those of European ancestry now have additional license to continue telling the stories of peoples of color. One response has been the expansion of the tradition of African American independent publishers to include children's literature in their programs. Johnson Publications published several illustrated books in the late 1960s. Haki Madhubuti's Third World Press is part of the same tradition. More recently, Kassahun Checole's Africa World Press has as one of its priorities the development of Afrocentric children's books. David Anderson's award-winning The Origin of Life on Earth (1991) was published by Sights Productions. African American Family Press has published Psalm Twenty-Three (1993), beautifully illustrated by Tim Ladwig. Wade and Cheryl Hudson's Just Us Books and Glen Thompson's Black Butterfly Press/Readers & Writers are leaders in this endeavor. Behind the scenes are agents such as Marie Brown who use their experience in every aspect of publishing to now serve the interests of African American writers, illustrators, and publishers of children's and young adult literature. In addition, a growing number of scholars and critics are turning their attention to this literature. Much of their effort, to this point, has gone toward simply reconstructing its history. As this task continues, however, scholars are beginning to ask why, for example, women are the primary writers of children's literature. Is this considered women's work? As African American female writers of children's literature, they are triply marginalized.

Increasingly, scholars are not only celebrating the genre's existence but examining it carefully, looking at feminist issues, class issues, language usage, and its place in the larger realm of African American literature as a whole. Even in this modern world of computer literacy, children still master basic literacy through books. Thus, children's literature must be acknowledged as a potentially powerful tool for transmitting not just innocent stories but interpretation of histories and ideologies. African American literature for children and young adults deserves the attention of young people, parents, teachers, librarians, and scholars, for with the exception of books for beginning readers, good children's literature is simply good literature. With our interest, constructive analysis, and celebration, it will continue to be an important part of a living African American literary tradition.

processed xml | source xml