DOCUMENT RESUME ED 215 369 CS 206, 884 AUTHOR Sims, Rudine TITLE Shadow and Substance: Afro-American Experience in Contemporary Children's Fiction. INSTITUTION National Council of Teachers of English, Urbana, Ill. REPORT NO ISBN-0-8141-4376-8 PUB DATE 82 NOTE 116p. AVAILABLE FROMNational Council of Teachers of English, 1111 Kenyon Rd., Urbana, IL 61801 (Stock No. 43768, $5.50 member, $6.00 non-member). EDRS PRICE MF01/PC05 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Black Attitudes; Black Culture; *Black Literature; *Black Youth; *Childrens Literature; *Cultural Awareness; Elementary Education; *Fiction; *Literature Appreciation; Majority Attitudes; Social Attitudes; Teaching Methods; Whites ABSTRACT The purpose of this monograph is to provide classroom teachers, librarians, and teacher educators in the field of children's literature with information that will enable them to make better informed selections of recent literature for and about Afro-Americans. The first chapter of the work places contemporary realistic fiction about Afro-Americans in a sociocultural and historical context, while the second chapter discusses the "social conscience" books that are written,primarily to help whites know the condition of blacks in the United Sfates. The third chapter.reviews "melting pot" books that were written for both blacks and whites on the assumption that both groups need to be informed that nonwhite children are exactly like other American children--except for their skiff color. The fourth chapter examines "culturally conscious" books that were written for Afro-American readers and that attempt to reflect both the uniquene'ss and the universal 'naneness of the Afro-American experience from the perspective of an Afro-American child or family. The fifth chapter presents a brief overview of the work of five Afro-Americah writers who have made significant contributions to children's fiction since 1965, and the final chapter summarizes the current status of children's fiction about Afro-Americans and suggests some areas yet to be covered in fictional works. (EL) ***********************************.************************************ Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. *********************************************************************** C) JD M Shadow and Substance Afro-American Experience in Contemporary Children's Fiction U S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATIDN NATIONAL INS! ITUTE OF EDUCATION EDUCAT.ONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC, (rpm document has been reproducedas received from the person or otganuatIOn ongmattng Rudine Sims Knot changes have been made toImprove University of Massachusetts reproduChon qualay Fonts of new or opinions statedm th'S docu- ment do not necessanty rem >ent ottickal NIE posmon or policy "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTEDBY National Council of Teachers of English TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC).' eN4 450 National Council of Teachers of English 9 1111 Kenyon Road, Urbana, Illinois 61801 (/) Dedicated with love and gratitude to the memory of Mom and DadLucille M. (Hodge) Sims and Beark _Myer Sims. They kept_ _ their hands on the plow and held on, believing that somehow educationand bookswould one day make me free. 1 NCTE Editorial Board: Paul T. Bryant, Marilyn Hanf Buckley, Thomas L. Clark, Jane Hornburger, Zora Rashkis, Robert F. Hogan, ex officio, Paul O'Dea, ex officio O Consultant Readers: Charlotte Brooks, Bernice Cullinan, Sandra Gibbs, Alan Purves Staff Editors: Jane Curran and Barbara Davis Book Design.: Tom Kovacs NCTE Stock Number 43768 0 1982 by the National Council of Teachers of English. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. It is the policy of NCTE in its journals and other publications to provide a forum for the open discussion of ideas concerning the content and the teaching of English and the language arts. Publicity accorded to anyparticular point of view does not imply endorsement by the Executive Committee, the Board of Directors, or the membership at large, except in announcements of policy, where such endorsement is clearly specified. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Sims, Rudine, 1937 Shadow and substance. Bibliography: p. 1. Children's storiesHistory and criticism. 2. Afro-Americans in literature.I. Title. PS374.C45S55 8131.54'093520396073 82.6518 ISBN 0-8141-4376.8 , AACR2 (V. Contents Preface vii 1. Tie Context for Change ,1 2. Realistic Fiction with a Social Conscience 17 3. Conjuring in the Melting Pot 33 4. Culturally Conscious Fiction: Reflections of 49 Afro-American Experience 5.. The Image-Makers 79 6. Where Are We? Where Do We Go from Here? 1031}, References 109 Author 111 U Beware lest you k se the substance by grasping at the shadow. _ . Aesop 4 O t , Preface As, recently as 1965, Black children exploring the world of chil- dren's books found themselves looking intoa kind of distorted fun-house mirror that resisted sending back reflections at all,or sent out only, laughable or unrecognizable images. Fortunately, that situation has changed. This monograph presentsan analysis of the nature and \extent of that change< ,. The purpose of the monograph is to provide classroom teachers, librarians, and teacher-educators in the field of children's literature with information that will enable them to make better informed selections of literature for and about Afro-Americans. Purists suggest that literature is its own excuse for being, and that to judge children's books on criteria other than literaryones is to debase literature and to burden its creators with a responsibility not really theirs. Purists \notwithstanding, educators who choose books for children cannot separate literary evaluations from social responsibility. The literature we choose helps to socializeour children and to transmit to them our values. My hope is that the information provided here may lead readers to a greaterawareness of the range of values and ,attitudes to be found hi modern chil- dren's fiction about Afro-Americans. This monograph reports on a survey and analysis of 150 books of conte4orary realistic fiction about Afro-Americans published from 1965 to 1979 inclusive. These booksare. appropriate for young people from preschool through eighth grade. The sample is not random, leaning heavily on the New York Public Library's comprehensive annotated bibliography, The Black Experierce in Children's Books (Rollock, 1974, 1979), and on the James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection at the Countee Cullen Branch of that library, where the books listed in the bibliographyare housed. The sample, however, is representative of the types of fiction-. about Blacks produced during the period in question. In order to emphasize images of today's children, books of his- torical fiction, particularly of 'the painfulslavery era, have been deliberately excluded. While the fiction in the survey is referred to 4 VII , Ci Preface as contemporary in setting, in the case of children's literature it is sometimes difficult to, know how far back in time one can go before material ceases to be contemporary for a child, especially a young one. For the most part, the books in this survey are set in the latter part of the twentieth century. A few picture books are set in an earlier time but are contemporary in feeling, with their historical setting making no difference to the story, though it may influence the style of the art. The terms Afro-American and Black are used throughout. Afro-American, a subcategory of Black, was deliberately chosen to empha;iize that the books in the survey are limited to those about growing up Black in the United States, as distinct from Africa, the Caribbean, or Central or South America. The term Black, capital- ized as the label for a distinct cultural group, is used in a more generic sense. Acknowledgments Special thanks are owed and hereby offered to the following people who helped to make this book possible: To the staff of the Countee Cullen Branch of the New York Public Library, especially Mrs. Vivian Delaney, for the gracious manner in which they made the James Weldon Johnson Collection easily accessible, arranged extended working time for me, and made the ,working environment extremely comfortable and pleasant. To the Al lensHattie, Oscar, Carol, and` Adele for generously making their home mine during my stay in New York; and to Dr. Curtis Lawson, who joined his sister's family in,treating me like visiting royalty during my stay. To Professor Byrd L. Jones, friend and colleague at the Univer- sity of Massachusetts, for reading the draft of the manuscript and providing me with both encouragement and insightful and support- ive criticisms. To Professor Charles A. Frye,.of Hampshire College, good friend and superb listener, for acting as a very patient and very effective sounding board, and for his generous %haring of information and insights about Afro-American culture and experience. 1 The Context for Change I've been 'buked, and I've been scorned. I've been talked about, sho's you born! Traditional Spiritual There is power in The Word. People in positions ofpower over others have historically understood, and often feared, the poten- tial of The Word to influence the minds of the peopleover whom they hold sway. ThiS fear manifests itself in both dramaticand mundane waysfrom the burning of books to organizedbook bannings, to parents' censoring of theirown children's reading. Strong evidence of this fear and respectcan be found in the his- tory of Euro-American slavery: the forced separation of Africans from others who spOlte the same language, laws forbiddingteach- ,ing Afro-American slaves to read, and theeagerness of many Afro- Americans to risk their own safety in learning to read andin 'teaching others. In the world of Afro-Americans, this respect for The Word was evident, too, in the early development ofa formal Afro-American literature, beginningeven before the United States became an independent nation And itwas partly through folk literature and lore that early Afro-Americanswere able to gain a sense of control over their own lives and the strength to survive in an alien land.