Who Writes for Black Children?: African American Children's Literature before 1900

Until recently, scholars believed that African American children’s literature did not exist before 1900. Now, Who Writes for Black Children? opens the door to a rich archive of largely overlooked literature read by black children. This volume’s combination of analytic essays, bibliographic materials, and primary texts offers alternative histories for early African American literary studies and children’s literature studies.

From poetry written by a slave for a plantation school to joyful “de...