Selected Reference Books
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A to Z of African Americans
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African-American Writers, Revised Edition profiles popular and prominent African-American writers across many genres of literature. Each entry in this thoroughly revised resource provides a biographical profile, concentrating on the major literary works and accomplishments of each author as well as an outline of his or her contributions to American literature. A general bibliography and subject indexes complete the text.
Call Number: Available OnlineISBN: 9781438133898Publication Date: 2010-01-01 -
African American Authors, 1745-1945
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There has been a dramatic resurgence of interest in early African American writing. Since the accidental rediscovery and republication of Harriet Wilson's Our Nig in 1983, the works of dozens of 19th and early 20th century black writers have been recovered and reprinted. There is now a significant revival of interest in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s; and in the last decade alone, several major assessments of 18th and 19th century African American literature have been published. Early African American literature builds on a strong oral tradition of songs, folktales, and sermons. Slave narratives began to appear during the late 18th and early 19th century, and later writers began to engage a variety of themes in diverse genres. A central objective of this reference book is to provide a wide-ranging introduction to the first 200 years of African American literature. Included are alphabetically arranged entries for 78 black writers active between 1745 and 1945. Among these writers are essayists, novelists, short story writers, poets, playwrights, and autobiographers. Each entry is written by an expert contributor and provides a biography, a discussion of major works and themes, an overview of the author's critical reception, and primary and secondary bibliographies. The volume concludes with a selected, general bibliography.
Call Number: Available OnlineISBN: 1280708441Publication Date: 2000-01-01 -
Black Authors and Illustrators of Books for Children and Young Adults
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This work contains 274 biographical sketches to aid understanding of the aspirations, thoughts, and viewpoints of authors and illustrators indigenous to the Black culture. It includes more than 120 photographs.
Call Number: Swirbul Library CMC Juvenile PN1009.A1 M87 1999ISBN: 0815320043Publication Date: 1998-12-01 -
Black History in the Pages of Children's Literature
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In spite of the month of February being designated as Black History Month, few students, regardless of race, leave school with an understanding of the depth and breadth of Black experience in America. Black History in the Pages of Children's Literature presents Black history contextualized in chapters that provide both an introduction to historical periods and an annotated bibliography of outstanding children's literature that can be used to introduce and teach the history of each period. These children's books provide stories and information that can help students develop deeper understandings of the distinct history of African Americans within the encompassing history of America. Author Rose Casement provides a complete historical timeframe from pre-colonization to the present, with chapters specifically covering the colonization of North America, the years of slavery, the Civil War and Reconstruction, the role African Americans played in westward expansion, the Jim Crow years, and contemporary stories that depict the present. Accompanying each chapter's bibliography are notations as to the recommended grade levels for the books presented. A glossary of terms and an index are also provided for clarification and easy access to specific areas of study. Teachers, parents, librarians, and administrators who want to gain a greater understanding of Black history will find this book to be a good resource.
Call Number: Swirbul Library C Level PS173.N4 C37 2008ISBN: 9780810858435Publication Date: 2007-10-01 -
Brown Gold: Milestones of African-American Children's Picture Books, 1845-2002
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Brown Gold is a compelling history and analysis of African-American children's picturebooks from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. At the turn of the nineteenth century, good children's books about black life were hard to find -- if, indeed, young black readers and their parents could even gain entry into the bookstores and libraries. But today, in the "Golden Age" of African-American children's picturebooks, one can find a wealth of titles ranging from Happy to be Nappy to Black is Brown is Tan. In this book, Michelle Martin explores how the genre has evolved from problematic early works such as Epaminondas that were rooted in minstrelsy and stereotype, through the civil rights movement, and onward to contemporary celebrations of blackness. She demonstrates the cultural importance of contemporary favorites through keen historical analysis -- scrutinizing the longevity and proliferation of the Coontown series and Ten Little Niggers books, for example -- that makes clear how few picturebooks existed in which black children could see themselves and their people positively represented even up until the 1960s. Martin also explores how children's authors and illustrators have addressed major issues in black life and history including racism, the civil rights movement, black feminism, major historical figures, religion, and slavery. Brown Gold adds new depth to the reader's understanding of African-American literature and culture, and illuminates how the round, dynamic characters in these children's novels, novellas, and picturebooks can put a face on the past, a face with which many contemporary readers can identify.
Call Number: Available OnlineISBN: 0415938570Publication Date: 2004-02-19 -
Children's Literature of the Harlem Renaissance
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The Harlem Renaissance, the period associated with the flowering of the arts in Harlem, inaugurated a tradition of African American children s literature, for the movement s central writers made youth both their subject and audience. W.E.B. Du Bois, Carter G. Woodson, Langston Hughes, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, and other Harlem Renaissance figures took an impassioned interest in the literary models offered to children, believing that the "New Negro" would ultimately arise from black youth. As a result, African American children s literature became a crucial medium through which a disparate community forged bonds of cultural, economic, and aesthetic solidarity. Kate Capshaw Smith explores the period s vigorous exchange about the nature and identity of black childhood and uncovers the networks of African American philosophers, community activists, schoolteachers, and literary artists who worked together to transmit black history and culture to the next generation."
Call Number: Available OnlineISBN: 1282071769Publication Date: 2014-03-28 -
The Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature
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This abridgement of The Oxford Companion to African American Literature will make the entries of the greatest general interest available to a wider audience, providing the same calibre of scholarship and information as the original volume. The Concise collects more than 400 biographies (authors, critics, literary characters and historical figures) of both well-known figures and the lives and careers of writers not found in other reference works. The abridgement also includes the 150 plot summaries of major works. The editors briefly update the biographic details for author entries to include mention of major new works, death dates, and awards since the Companion's 1997 publication. A revised introduction, contributors list, subject index, cross-references, and updated bibliographical notes are also included. The volume reprints in its entirety the five-part fifteen page essay, "Literary History", capturing the full sweep of African American writing in the U.S. from the colonial and early national eras to the present day.
Call Number: Available OnlineISBN: 0198031750 -
The Coretta Scott King Awards
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Dedicated to the memory of children's book author Virginia Hamilton, The Coretta Scott King Awards: 1970-2004 celebrates 35 years of African-American contributions to children's literature. This unique volume not only celebrates the award and the African-American community, but is a valuable selection tool and a teaching resource.
Call Number: Available OnlineISBN: 0838935400Publication Date: 2004-06-07 -
A Kid's Guide to African American History
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What do all these people have in common: the first man to die in the American Revolution, a onetime chief of the Crow Nation, the inventors of peanut butter and the portable X-ray machine, and the first person to make a wooden clock in this country? They were all great African Americans. For parents and teachers interested in fostering cultural awareness among children of all races, this book includes more than 70 hands-on activities, songs, and games that teach kids about the people, experiences, and events that shaped African American history. This expanded edition contains new material throughout, including additional information and biographies. Children will have fun designing an African mask, making a medallion like those worn by early abolitionists, playing the rhyming game "Juba," inventing Brer Rabbit riddles, and creating a unity cup for Kwanzaa. Along the way they will learn about inspiring African American artists, inventors, and heroes like Harriet Tubman, Benjamin Banneker, Rosa Parks, Langston Hughes, and Louis Armstrong, to name a few.
Call Number: Swirbul CMC Activity ; E185 .S19 2000ISBN: 155652417XPublication Date: 2000 -
The New York Public Library Amazing African American History
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Who were the Buffalo Soldiers? What was the Harlem Renaissance? Who were the Little Rock Nine? These are just a few of the hundreds of questions about African American history answered in this resource from The New York Public Library. From Africa through slavery, the Civil War to the Civil Rights and Black Power movements, and up to the present, relevant information is presented.
Call Number: Swirbul Library CMC Juvenile E185 .P34 1998ISBN: 0471192171Publication Date: 1997-12-15 -
Who Writes for Black Children?
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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 "death biographies"of African Americans in the antebellum North to literature penned by African American children themselves, Who Writes for Black Children? presents compelling new definitions of both African American literature and children's literature. Editors Katharine Capshaw and Anna Mae Duane bring together a rich collection of essays that argue for children as an integral part of the nineteenth-century black community and offer alternative ways to look at the relationship between children and adults. Including two bibliographic essays that provide a list of texts for future research as well as an extensive selection of hard-to-find primary texts, Who Writes for Black Children? broadens our ideas of authorship, originality, identity, and political formations. In the process, the volume adds new texts to the canon of African American literature while providing a fresh perspective on our desire for the literary origin stories that create canons in the first place. Contributors: Karen Chandler, U of Louisville; Martha J. Cutter, U of Connecticut; LuElla D'Amico, Whitworth U; Brigitte Fielder, U of Wisconsin-Madison; Eric Gardner, Saginaw Valley State U; Mary Niall Mitchell, U of New Orleans; Angela Sorby, Marquette U; Ivy Linton Stabell, Iona College; Valentina K. Tikoff, DePaul U; Laura Wasowicz; Courtney Weikle-Mills, U of Pittsburgh; Nazera Sadiq Wright, U of Kentucky.
Call Number: Available OnlineISBN: 1517900271Publication Date: 2017-05-30
Selected Databases
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Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new windowProvides more than 7,000 multidisciplinary full-text periodicals, nearly 6,000 peer-reviewed journals, and more than 11,600 monographs, reports, conference proceedings, dating back as far as 1887.
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Gale Literature Resource Center This link opens in a new windowProvides access to biographies, bibliographies and critical analysis of authors from every age and literary discipline.
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Gale Virtual Reference Library This link opens in a new windowAn online full text collection of electronic reference books in a variety of subject areas.
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Literature Criticism Online This link opens in a new windowProvides online access to the full collection of Contemporary Literary Criticism, Drama Criticism, Poetry Criticism, Shakespearean Criticism, Short Story Criticism, Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, Nineteenth Century Literary Criticism, Literature Criticism from 1400-1800, Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism, and Children�s Literature
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MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new windowOffers bibliographic access to journal articles, books and dissertations in language, literature, folklore and the dramatic arts. It dates as far back as the 1920s.
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Oxford African American Studies Center This link opens in a new windowA comprehensive collection of scholarship on the lives and events which have shaped African American and African history and culture. Titles include: African American Artists before the Twentieth Century, African American National Biography, Africana, Black Women in America, Second Edition, Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature, Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895, Encyclopedia of African American History, 1896 to the Present, and more.
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ProQuest Central This link opens in a new windowLarge multidisciplinary database including more than 25,000 titles, over 19,000 in full text. Besides journals, PQC includes 2206 newspapers, over 100,000 full text dissertations, 30,000 market reports, with some backfiles dating as far back as 1921
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Something About The Author Online This link opens in a new windowProvides online access to Gale's Something About the Author series, which examines the lives and works of authors and illustrators for children and young adults, including both the main series and Something About the Author Autobiography.
Selected Websites
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African American Literature Book Club (AALBC)The largest, most frequently visited website dedicated to books and films by or about people of African descent.
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AALBC Top 117 African-American Children’s Books for 2023Children’s book authors, booksellers, and avid readers shared their favorite children’s books.
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African American Authors of Books for Children and Young AdultsThe Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction has included in their website The African-American Authors of Books for Children and Young Adults which contains a summary of each of the books listed, as well as the appropriate age group.
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The Brown BookshelfThe Brown Bookshelf is designed to push awareness of the myriad of African American voices writing for young readers
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Reading Rockets - Celebrating and Learning About Black History and CultureThrough children's books, interviews with Black children's authors and illustrators, classroom activities, online history resources, and powerful documentaries, they celebrate and learn about the lives and contributions of African Americans.