ABSTRACT
We examine in this book the specifi c ways Africa is set up as a foil, “as a place of negations” within highly touted children’s books. There are few exceptions to this type of negative image-making. Today’s fi ctional works for the young extend centuries of myth-making about Africa as a “dark place.” Typically an author selects an African community, and then places its members in an unfavorable light in comparison with the Western characters. Jan Nederveen Pieterse’s terse comment on colonialism applies equally to colonialist content in children’s books: “Europe’s light shone brighter by virtue of the darkening of other continents” (75).
