Black Characters in Children's Fiction Series Since 1968

Abstract

A 1968 study by the author reached a necessarily bleak conclusion about the image of Blacks in various children's fiction series: Except for removing dialect, the series books are maintaining the traditional image of the Negro.1 During the almost quarter of a century since that study, entitled Persistence of Uncle Tom, the picture has changed. Whether that change has been for the better or worse depends upon the degree of one's willingness to equate change with improvement. The term fiction series refers to books written by one author (either an actual person or a syndicate producing books under the name of a single, nonexistent author) which involve the same major characters-their friends, parents, heroes, and villains-in a successive series of actions, scenes, and situations. Each volume is complete in itself but continues the adventures of the major characters. Since 1899, the various series have dominated the children's fiction market from grades two to six; other contemporary series appeal to the young adult market of teenaged readers. Some of the more popular series include the Bobbsey Twins, the Nancy Drew Files, the Hardy Boys Casefiles, and the Sweet Valley High series. These series have a huge reading public, sufficient to warrant a new entry every month in the latter three (see Table I). Historically, the series have been consistently didactic instruments, not markedly different from such puritan texts as The New England Primer, whose authors and publishers sought to present definite values and beliefs to children. Since the series books can be and are read by children themselves without much, if any, adult assistance or supervision, one may safely conclude that young