Introduction
Part I. Locating Readers
Conjuring Readers: Antebellum African American Children's Poetry / Angela Sorby
Free the Children: Jupiter Hammon and the Origin of African American Children's Literature / Courtney Weikle-Mills
"Ye Are Builders": Child Readers in Frances Harper's Vision of an Inclusive Black Poetry / Karen Chandler
Part II: Schooling, Textuality, and Literacies
Madame Couvent's Legacy: Free Children of Color as Historians in Antebellum New Orleans / Mary Niall Mitchell
Innocence in Susan Paul and Ann Plato's Black Children's Biographies / Ivy Linton Stabell
A Role Model for African American Children: Abigail Field Mott's Life and Adventures of Olaudah Equiano and White Northern Abolitionism / Valentina K. Tikoff
The Child's Illustrated Antislavery Talking Book: Abigail Mott's Abridgment of Olaudah Equiano's Interesting Narrative for African American Children / Martha J. Cutter
Part III: Defining African American Children's Literature: Critical Crossovers
"Our Hope Is in the Rising Generation": Locating African American Children's Literature in the Children's Department of the Colored American / Nazera Sadiq Wright
"No Rights That Any Body Is Bound to Respect": Pets, Race, and African American Child Readers / Brigitte Fielder
Finding God's Way: Amelia E. Johnson's Clarence and Corrine as a Path to Religious Resistance for African American Children / LuElla D'Amico
Part IV: Bibliographic Essays
Nuggets from the Field: The Roots of African American Children's Literature, 1780-1866 / Laura Wasowicz
Children's Literature in the Christian Recorder: An Initial Comparative Biobibliography for May 1862 and April 1873 / Eric Gardner
Part V. A Collection of African American Children's Literature before 1900
The Life and Adventures of Olaudah Equiano / Olaudah Equiano ; abridged by Abigail Field Mott
Selected Poems / Jupiter Hammon
Only Once
Selected Essays and Poems / Ann Plato
William Saunders; or, Blessings in Disguise
The Ten Commandments / Lucy Skipwith
Dogs and Cars / Harriet Beecher Stowe
Selected Poems / Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
Excerpts from "Fancy Etchings" / F.E.W. Harper
Lines Dedicated to the Memory of Hattie M. Mowbray / D.M. Hilgrove
A Story for the Little Folks: The Tiger
The Mournful Luter; or, The Preceptor's Farewell / Daniel Alexander Payne
Excerpt from Clarence and Corinne; or, God's Way / A.E. Johnson
My Childhood's Happy Days / Daniel Webster Davis
Lines Addressed to a Wreath of Flowers, Designed as a Present for Mary Ann / E. Webb
Acknowledgments
Contributors
Index.