Tracing Terror, Imagining Otherwise: A Critical Content Analysis of Antiblack Violence in Middle Grade Novels

Abstract

This research offers a critical content analysis of three middle grade novels that is substantiated by key concepts within Afro-pessimism, Black critical theory, and Black futurity. Through this framing, we examine significant historic and sociopolitical moments reflected in the novels when Black preteen protagonists are forced to confront racialized violence. Across the set of novels, we outline a distinct pattern of antiblackness—one that chronicles the incomplete nature of emancipation that continuously haunts Black lives in the United States (). Yet, at the same time, we consider how the novels connect the past, present, and future by reflecting how Black girls across time and location have imagined alternative ways forward.