Call for Papers
Issue #54: Why Indigenous Children’s and Young Adult Literatures Matter
In Issue 54 of the Bank Street Occasional Paper Series, we extend and honor Daniel Heath Justice’s pivotal work, Why Indigenous Literatures Matter, to highlight and celebrate Indigenous Children’s and Young Adult Literature (ICYAL). We seek submissions that speak to the ways authors, teachers, librarians, students, and community members engage ICYAL as it changes the landscape of how Indigeneity is represented, speaking to and reimagining the diverse values, knowledges, dreams, and lives of Indigenous children, youth, adults, and communities.
The field of Children’s and Young Adult Literature has expanded greatly over the last decade and nowhere has this been more needed than within Indigenous literature. ICYAL texts are created by Indigenous authors and focus on Indigenous peoples and topics important to Indigenous ways of being. In this literature, Indigenous children and youth experience life in the near past, as in Louise Erdrich’s The Birchbark House (1999); in the present, as in Carole Lindstrom’s We are Water Protectors (2020); and in the future, as in Cherie Dimaline’s The Marrow Thieves (2017). In the work of Darcie Little Badger, Indigenous youth are adventurers (2020). Indigenous young people become superheroes in David A. Robertson’s writing (2017, 2018, 2019), and in Jen Ferguson’s world in The Summer of Bitter and Sweet, Indigenous youth participate in everyday life, working at an ice cream shop (2022). The life experiences portrayed in ICYAL are crucial the centering of the diversity of Indigeneity, representing a vast array of distinct Indigenous nations and communities, and at the same time, speaking to universal human experiences. Muscogee author Cynthia Leitich Smith reminds us:
“…[W]hat fiction does best is to provide an opportunity for developing interpersonal relationships between real live kids and those who live only on the page. For Native readers, that may mean connecting with a character who embodies aspects of themselves. For non-Native readers, that may mean gaining cross-cultural understanding and empathy.” (Leitich Smith, 2020)
Articles published in this issue will provide readers with opportunities to learn more about ICYAL texts and how to use them responsibly and in relationship to Indigenous peoples, supporting the creation of conceptual and practical tools for anti-oppressive education. Offering readings and interpretations of this literature can open spaces of celebration of Indigenous ways of survivance, serve as resistance to settler-colonial logic, and unsettle the Western epistemological hegemony often practiced in schools.
For this issue, we seek submissions from an array of participants, including scholars of ICYAL and education, teachers using ICYAL, students reading ICYAL, and authors writing ICYAL. Questions addressed might include (but are not limited to):
- What might ICYAL teach us about Indigenous ways of knowing and being historically, in the present, and in future imaginations?
- What insights about ICYAL may help readers, including educators, to understand ICYAL more deeply?
- What tools might be effective for utilizing ICYAL in classroom or community spaces?
- What should non-Indigenous teachers and readers of ICYAL consider when engaging this literature?
- What insights can we gain from child/youth experiences of reading these texts?
- What do authors of ICYAL hope readers will consider or experience in reading these texts?
We are interested in essays and manuscripts (no more than 5000 words) as well as short films, audio essays, photo essays, and small-scale artistic products. Only unpublished pieces that are not under review by other publications are eligible for consideration. Although not required, we invite those interested to reach out to the editors to pitch ideas and receive feedback and support. For more information or if you would like to discuss your ideas, please contact guest editors Joaquin Muñoz at joaquin.munoz@ubc.ca or Dawn Quigley at dawnquigleywriter@gmail.com.