African and African American Children??and Adolescent Literature in the Classroom

US scholars of education recommend books of African American and African literature that are suitable for children and adolescents. Though acknowledging that in many respects African and African-American cultures are different, they argue that exposing students to both at the same time provides greater insight. In sections on pre-kindergarten to third grade, upper elementary and middle grades four to eight, and high school grades nine to twelve, they consider such topics as traditional families in recently published African American children's literature for the early grades, sharing culturally relevant literature with preschool children and their families, young black adolescents reading through the grief, engaging hearts and minds with excellent nonfiction literature, Michael Anthony's The Year in San Fernando and Cyril Everard Palmers's The Cloud with the Silver Lining as young adult fiction portraying black poverty in the postcolonial Anglophone Caribbean, and disability in Africana adolescent literature. Annotation c2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Vivian Yenika-Agbaw, Associate Professor of Literacy/Children’s Literature at The Pennsylvania State University – University Park, has published articles in Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, The New Advocate, Language Arts, Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies, International Review of Education, and Bookbird: A Journal of International Children’s Literature, among others. Her most recent book is Representing Africa in Children’s Literature: Old and New Ways of Seeing. In addition, she is an assistant editor of Sankofa: Journal of African Children’s and Young Adult Literature, and she is currently serving on the editorial boards of Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy (JAAL) and Language Arts.
Mary Napoli is Associate Professor of Reading and Children’s Literature at The Pennsylvania State University – Harrisburg, where she teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses in children’s and adolescent literature, language arts, and children’s literature and writing. Prior to working at the university level, Dr. Napoli taught kindergarten and first grade in the Pocono Mountain School District. Her research interests include the integration of multicultural literature across the curriculum and girls’ responses to popular cultural texts. She currently serves on the Notable Children’s Books in the Language Arts Committee and the National Council of Teachers of English Excellence in Poetry for Children Committee.