Womanist Issues in Adimora-Ezeigbo’s Children’s Literature

Abstract

Few women writers have foregrounded the social welfare of children in children’s literature as this speaks to nationalist discourses and the welfare of women as Adimora-Ezeigbo has done in many of her children’s literature. Much attention has not been given to womanist issues in children’s literature by Nigerian writers. This says much about the lack of importance accorded children’s literature in Nigeria as a worthwhile literary endeavor. At best, moral and didactic overtures, values and undertones have usually been attached to children’s literature as the major reasons for its existence in Nigerian literature. Thus, there is a need to examine womanist ideology in children’s literature. Therefore, this paper focuses on two of Adimora-Ezeigbo’s children’s literature, The Prize and The Buried Treasureas texts which reflect the subtle ways by which nationalist issues and women’s welfare issues are subtly embedded into and foregrounded in literary works for children. It is observed that this is a huge leap in terms of womanist discourses in this otherwise little-regarded literary genre. Also, the attention paid to the discussion of issues of women’s emancipation in line with Adimora-Ezeigbo’s snail-sense feminism in the texts shows an attempt at creating awareness about women and women related issues in subtle ways which children can easily grasp. Lastly, Adimora-Ezeigbo’s idea of women’s emancipation through the dialogic snail-sense feminist idea further puts the potential of children’s literature as a viable womanist tool into better perspective. Considering the importance to the future of Nigeria and that of feminism, the paper recommended that more research should focus on womanist ideology in children’s literature. Also, women writers should focus on embedding womanist ideology into children’s literature.