ABSTRACT
Unlike the beginnings of children’s literature in Europe, Canada, and the United States, works for children from Latin America and the Caribbean are tied to the complex political and economic history of dependency and liberation movements that have beset the continent since the times of Columbus (→ Development, II/6). Criticism and analysis of children’s literature, until fairly recently, has tended to privilege materials published by big presses in Great Britain and the United States and to center on the experiences of white characters from the Global North (→ Whiteness, I/46). This entry draws comparisons between children’s literature in Spanish that has emerged from Central and South America and U.S. minority literature for young people, which has similarly been striving to raise awareness of the longstanding lack of representation of African Americans, Native Americans, Latinos, and Asian Americans in U.S. history and culture, and to voice the experiences, diversity, and value of its communities (→ Inter-ethnic Relations, II/6; Latinidad, I/33; Indigeneity, I/31).
