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Reading Black Childhoods in Chains and Crongton Knights

Abstract:
This essay reads Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson (2008) and Crongton Knights by Alex Wheatle (2016) as texts in the young adult (YA) genre that provocatively render black childhood legible. It contends that Anderson and Wheatle destabilise the presumed authority of first-person narratives through the formal choices that structure their novels. Through these choices, the essay argues, creative representations of black childhood in these two texts subvert and challenge perceptions of black children as so mature and resilient as to be outside or beyond notions of childhood or innocence — what is known as ‘adultification’.
Publication status:
Published
Peer review status:
Peer reviewed

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Publisher copy:
10.1080/02690055.2022.2067212

Authors


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Institution:
University of Oxford
Division:
HUMS
Department:
English Faculty
Oxford college:
Exeter College
Role:
Author
ORCID:
0000-0002-2544-3292


Publisher:
Routledge
Journal:
Wasafiri More from this journal
Volume:
37
Issue:
3
Pages:
57-67
Publication date:
2022-08-16
DOI:
EISSN:
1747-1508
ISSN:
0269-0055


Language:
English
Keywords:
Pubs id:
1344076
Local pid:
pubs:1344076
Deposit date:
2023-05-23

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