Ethnic Studies and Youth Literature - A Critical Reader

Brings together scholars and practitioners to present an ethnic studies framework for studying and teaching youth literature.
For decades, youth literature has been reckoning with its role in systemic racism and oppression. In this landmark edited volume, Marilisa Jiménez García and Sonia Alejandra Rodríguez assemble a cadre of well-known women of color scholars and practitioners to make a case for ethnic studies as a path for pursuing racial justice in the field. Ethnic studies, they argue, demands that we go beyond seeing race, ethnicity, culture, and diversity as questions of identity and difference. Instead, it shows us how marginalized positionalities create epistemologies that shape our understanding of age, craft, genre, and knowledge production. Multidisciplinary and intersectional in its approach, Ethnic Studies and Youth Literature analyzes US imperialism through the lens of youth literature and vice versa, shedding light on the roots of our current culture wars and curriculum battles.

About the author

Marilisa Jiménez García is Associate Professor of Children's and Young Adult Literary Cultures at Rutgers University-Camden, Department of Childhood Studies. She is the author of Side by Side: US Empire, Puerto Rico, and the Roots of American Youth Literature and Culture, which won the Children's Literature Association Book Prize for monographsSonia Alejandra Rodríguez is Professor of English at LaGuardia Community College (CUNY). They coedit the journal Research on Diversity in Youth Literature.

Product details

• Assisted by: Marilisa Jiménez García (Editor), Sonia Alejandra Rodríguez (Editor)
• Publisher: Ingram Publishers Services
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Release: 02.01.2026
• EAN: 9798855802979
• ISBN: 979-8-8558-0297-9
• No. of pages: 210
• Dimensions: 152 mm x 229 mm x 14 mm
• Weight: 308 g
• Series: SUNY series in Multiethnic Literatures
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies; Ethnic Studies, LITERARY CRITICISM / Children's & Young Adult Literature, Children's & teenage literature studies, LITERARY CRITICISM / American / African American & Black, LITERARY CRITICISM / American / Hispanic & Latino, Children’s and teenage literature studies: general, LITERARY CRITICISM / Indigenous, Ethnic studies / Ethnicity