Children’s literature in Africa: a study of immersion of human developmental values.

Abstract

Texts and literature are used to ignite critical thought in people and to demonstrate what is of value in society. This research sought to explore and appraise some selected African children’s literature with a view to identifying the lessons and morals which are immersed in them for the development of African children. The objectives of the study were to: (1) investigate the reasons given by West and Southern African authors of African children’s literature (novels) for why they write for African children; (2) explore the content and message of the selected children’s literature; (3) determine the extent to which the content and message of the selected children’s literature fit or are consistent with the intended rationale for the writing of these books; (4) determine the extent to which authors of children’s books from West Africa share the same philosophy or rationale for writing with those from Southern Africa; (5) outline the African child growth and developmental values immersed in the selected children’s literature; and (6) examine the psycho-educational relevance of the selected African children’s books. The study adopted a text-based qualitative research methodology. This is a methodology which, according to Boote and Beile (2005), does not seek information from human participants but only from texts. The data for this research thus already existed inside the sampled texts. Children’s literature written in English from two geographical locations namely West Africa and Southern Africa constituted the source of the data for the research. The study revealed that the novels written by the sampled African authors have some major similarities regardless of their geographic location. At the same time, there are also some minor differences between them. The most prominent human-building virtue found in some of the texts investigated is the notion of the importance of family and community in successful child development in Africa. Most of the stories in the novels studied could be classified as cautionary stories which warn against lying, indulgence in mischievous behaviours and breaking of rules. The selected literature provides representations of Africans and real-life experiences of Africans such as poverty, which are current with relatable issues (Caser, 2017). The literature represents Africans as people with laws and ways of social interaction which include respect for elders and one another. They provide an image of African people from African perspectives. The selected children’s books are considered suitable for the English language education system and career development of African children. Implications of these findings were drawn from the research and some recommendations for policy and practice were proffered.