Transformations in Kenyan Children’s Prose Fiction

Abstract

My article aims at accessing how children’s literature in Kenya helps in understanding the changes that have taken place in the Kenyan society since independence. The article samples a few texts since the early years of independence and accesses the thematic concerns. A reading of these texts reveals a concern with issues ranging from traditional forms of education, colonisation, modernity and its accompanying issues like establishment of cities, crime, disease, tribal clashes, and other concerns often associated with third world countries. The analysis done in this paper is crucial as it exposes the trajectory of Kenya’s children’s literature to both local and international audiences. Children’s literature in Kenya is therefore seen to have been adjusting to, and embracing the transformations in the Kenyan nation. The paperconcludes that children’s literature is an important channel through which the activities, dreams, fears, failures and successes of people in specific nations can be understood.