African American Adolescent Female Heroes

<p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>In the wake of the second wave of the Black Lives Matter movement inequalities and disparities were brought to light across the publishing industry. The need for more diverse representative young adult literature gained new traction resulting in an influx of young adult speculative fiction featuring African American young women. While the #BlackGirlMagic movement inspired a wave of positive African American female heroes in young adult fiction it is still important to acknowledge the history and legacy of enslavement in America and their impact on literature. Many of the depictions of young Black women in contemporary speculative fiction still rely on stereotypical representations rooted in American enslavement.</span></p><p><br></p><p><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>African American Adolescent Female</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Heroes: The Twenty-First-Century Young Adult Neo-Slave Narrative</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> investigates the application of the neo-slave narrative structure to the twenty-first-century young adult text. Author Melanie A. Marotta examines texts featuring a female adolescent protagonist of color including </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Orleans</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Tankborn</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>The Book of Phoenix</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Binti</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> and </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>The Black God's Drums </em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>as well as series like the Devil's Wake series Octavia E. Butler's Parable series and the Dread Nation series. Taken together these chapters seek to analyze whether the roles for adolescent female characters of color are changing or whether they remain re-creations of traditional slave narrative roles. Further the chapters explore if trauma healing and activism are enacted in this genre.</span></p>