“But This Story of Mine Is Not Unique”: A Review of Research on African American Children’s Literature

Abstract

This article provides a review of research on African American children’s literature by synthesizing the growing body of textual and reader response research conducted across the past several decades. The literature presented in this article cuts across the disciplines of education as well as English and library science. Using the selective tradition as a theoretical underpinning, the authors review extant literature through a three-pronged thematic heuristic developed as a result of their analysis. These themes present research findings related to African American children’s literature as (1) contested terrain, (2) cultural artifact, and (3) literary art. The three themes generated to delineate the findings derived from a four-stage iterative process of analysis. By considering collective findings, a more careful and continued institutionalization of this literature can take place in schools, libraries, bookstores, popular media, and within families. The authors also address future implications for educational practice and research related to African American children’s literature.