ASU professor publishes new volume on African American children in literature
Neal A. Lester’s latest scholarly collection examines how Black children have been represented — and politicized — in U.S. literary and cultural history
Neal A. Lester. Photo courtesy of Nayeli Lopez
Neal A. Lester, Foundation Professor of English and founding director of Project Humanities at Arizona State University, extends his long-standing inquiry into the question “Where is our humanity?” with the publication of a new scholarly collection examining representations of African American children in literature.
Although the essays in the special-issue reprint span diverse historical and social contexts, the volume collectively underscores a central truth: Black children are, and have long been, positioned at the center of adult racial politics in the United States.
“This special issue ... focuses on African American children’s literature and looks at the many ways in which reading and studying children’s texts teach as much about the adult world as about the world of children,” writes Lester. “From representations to illustrations to narratives, (it) offers a more critically nuanced treatment of Black children’s lives and experiences.”
The 198-page volume, released this January, examines how children’s literature and representations of children of color shape the worldview of both children and adults. The essays consider how stories and images influence ideas about identity and lack of humanity. Lester’s own contribution, “Black Children’s Lives Matter: Representational Violence against Black Children,” emphasizes the urgency of this work.
“This essay is not a history of violence against Black children in literature,” Lester explains, “but rather an effort to understand and demonstrate that Black children’s lives have not always mattered and that to address true racial justice in this country, systemic assaults on Black children and, by extension, on Black children’s families and communities, must be included in any justice conversation and work.”
His analysis examines children’s literature that normalizes violence against Black children, asking readers to consider how representation shapes what society accepts as an “ordinary” worldview of Black children.
Lester also situates this conversation within a broader historical framework of racialized violence in the United States against marginalized people of color. He notes that the dehumanization directed at Black children and adults connects to past and present violence also experienced by other communities, including Latinx and Indigenous peoples, Asians and Asian Americans, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh and Middle Eastern Americans.
The collection builds on Lester’s decades-long scholarship on race, representation and humanity, spanning topics from violence against Black children and Black masculinity to African American folklore and Toni Morrison’s children’s books, while also reflecting his public humanities work through Project Humanities.
The work of uplifting Black children’s stories continues the second annual celebration of Black Children’s Book Week in Phoenix, a weeklong recognition of early literacy through African American children’s literature. This grassroots community celebration seeks to affirm identity and the importance of stories and storytelling with author events and literacy programming.