Soon Come Home to This Island: West Indians in British Children's Literature

259 Pages·2007·4.893 MB·English

by  Karen Sands-O'Connor

Soon Come Home
to This Island
CHILDREN’S LITERATURE AND CULTURE
JACK ZIPES, SERIES EDITOR
Children’s Literature Comes of Age Little Women and the Feminist
Toward a New Aesthetic Imagination
by Maria Nikolajeva Criticism, Controversy, Personal Essays
edited by Janice M. Alberghene and
Sparing the Child Beverly Lyon Clark
Grief and the Unspeakable in Youth Literature
about Nazism and the Holocaust The Presence of the Past
by Hamida Bosmajian
Memory, Heritage, and Childhood in Postwar
Britain
Rediscoveries in Children’s Literature
by Valerie Krips
by Suzanne Rahn
The Case of Peter Rabbit
Inventing the Child
Changing Conditions of Literature for
Culture, Ideology, and the Story of Childhood
Children
by Joseph L. Zornado
by Margaret Mackey
Regendering the School Story
The Feminine Subject in Children’s
Sassy Sissies and Tattling Tomboys
Literature
by Beverly Lyon Clark
by Christine Wilkie-Stibbs
A Necessary Fantasy?
Ideologies of Identity in Adolescent
The Heroic Figure in Children’s Popular
Culture Fiction
edited by Dudley Jones and Tony Watkins by Robyn McCallum
White Supremacy in Children’s Literature Recycling Red Riding Hood
Characterizations of African Americans, by Sandra Beckett
1830-1900
by Donnarae MacCann
The Poetics of Childhood
by Roni Natov
Ways of Being Male
Representing Masculinities in Children’s
Voices of the Other
Literature and Film
Children’s Literature and the Postcolonial
by John Stephens
Context
edited by Roderick McGillis
Retelling Stories, Framing Culture
Traditional Story and Metanarratives in
Narrating Africa
Children’s Literature
by John Stephens and Robyn McCallum George Henty and the Fiction of Empire
by Mawuena Kossi Logan
Pinocchio Goes Postmodern
Perils of a Puppet in the United States Reimagining Shakespeare for Children
by Richard Wunderlich and and Young Adults
Thomas J. Morrissey edited by Naomi J. Miller
Representing the Holocaust in Youth Empire’s Children
Literature Empire and Imperialism in Classic British
by Lydia Kokkola Children’s Books
by M. Daphne Kutzer
Translating for Children
Constructing the Canon of Children’s
by Riitta Oittinen
Literature
Beyond Library Walls and Ivory Towers
Beatrix Potter
by Anne Lundin
Writing in Code
by M. Daphne Kutzer
Youth of Darkest England
Working Class Children at the Heart of
Children’s Films Victorian Empire
History, Ideology, Pedagogy, Theory by Troy Boone
by Ian Wojcik-Andrews
Ursula K. Leguin
Utopian and Dystopian Writing for Beyond Genre Literature for Children
Children and Young Adults and Adults
edited by Carrie Hintz and Elaine Ostry by Mike Cadden
Transcending Boundaries Twice-Told Children’s Tales
Writing for a Dual Audience of Children The Influence of Childhood Reading on
and Adults Writers for Adults
edited by Betty Greenway
edited by Sandra L. Beckett
Diana Wynne Jones
The Making of the Modern Child
The Fantastic Tradition and Children’s
Children’s Literature and Childhood in the
Literature
Late Eighteenth Century
by Farah Mendlesohn
by Andrew O’Malley
Childhood and Children’s Books in Early
How Picturebooks Work
Modern Europe, 1550-1800
by Maria Nikolajeva and Carole Scott
edited by Andrea Immel and
Michael Witmore
Brown Gold
Milestones of African American Children’s
Voracious Children
Picture Books, 1845-2002
Who Eats Whom in Children’s Literature
by Michelle H. Martin
by Carolyn Daniel
Russell Hoban/Forty Years
National Character in South African
Essays on His Writing for Children English Children’s Literature
by Alida Allison
by Elwyn Jenkins
Apartheid and Racism in South African Myth, Symbol, and Meaning in Mary
Children’s Literature Poppins
by Donnarae MacCann and The Governess as Provocateur
Amadu Maddy by Georgia Grilli
A Critical History of French Children’s Once Upon a Time in a Different World
Literature Issues and Ideas in African American
by Penny Brown Children’s Literature
by Neal A. Lester
The Gothic in Children’s Literature
Haunting the Borders Soon Come Home to This Island
Edited by Anna Jackson, Karen Coats, West Indians in British Children’s Literature
and Roderick McGillis by Karen Sands-O’Connor
Reading Victorian Schoolrooms
Childhood and Education in Nineteenth-
Century Fiction
by Elizabeth Gargano
S C H
oon ome ome
T I
to his sland
West Indians in British Children’s Literature
Karen Sands-O’Connor
New York London
Routledge Routledge
Taylor & Francis Group Taylor & Francis Group
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sands-O’Connor, Karen.
Soon come home to this island : West Indians in British children’s literature / by
Karen Sands-O’Connor.
p. cm. -- (Children’s literature and culture ; v. 45)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-415-97630-5 (hardback : alk. paper)
1. Children’s literature, English--History and criticism. 2. Children--Books and
reading--Great Britain--History. 3. Caribbean Area--In literature. 4. West Indians
in literature. 5. West Indies--In literature. 6. Characters and characteristics in
literature--Juvenile literature. 7. Imperialism in literature. [1. Characters in literature.]
I. Title.
PR990.S26 2007
820.9’352996--dc22 2006102911
Visit the Taylor & Francis Web site at
http://www.taylorandfrancis.com
and the Routledge Web site at
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For the Royal Loyal Three
who stand on guard for me always
and for
the two white knights
one of honor, one of anger
who walk a piece through the darkness with me
and by their lights teach me how to live and work
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CONTENTS
Series Editor’s Foreword xi
Acknowledgments xiii
Preface: Soon Come Home xv
Chapter 1 This Island for England: Early Depictions of the
West Indies 1
Chapter 2 The Black Man’s Lament: Enlisting Child Readers in
the Fight Over Slavery 21
Chapter 3 A Small Corner of the Empire: The West Indies in
Literature of the Victorian Era 41
Chapter 4 School on an Island: Geographies, School Stories,
and Comics in the First Half of the Twentieth
Century 63
Chapter 5 The Winds of Change: The West Indian Comes to
Britain 91
Chapter 6 Happy Families? British Picture Books After 1970 117
Chapter 7 This Island for Me: Black British Writers 139
Conclusion: The Avenging Caribbean 165
ix