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Book Launch: Beyond the Secret Garden: Racially Minoritised People in British Children's Literature
17 March 2025, 5:00 pm–6:30 pm
Join the Critical Childhood Studies Centre in welcoming authors Darren Chetty & Karen Sands O'Connor
Event Information
Open to
- All
Availability
- Yes
Organiser
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Institute of Advanced Studies
Location
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IAS Common GroundG11, ground floor, South WingUCL, Gower St, LondonWC1E 6BTUnited Kingdom
ABOUT THE BOOK
Drawing on and expanding their long-running column for Books for Keeps, Dr Darren Chetty and Professor Karen Sands O’Connor trace how Black and racially minoritised characters have been represented in ‘the secret garden’ of British children’s literature from its earliest stages. Examining how children’s literature has both been shaped by, and shaped, prevailing attitudes towards people of colour, they take a thematic approach that offers teachers and parents contextual knowledge that will enrich how books are discussed with children.
Beyond the Secret Garden Children’s Literature and Representations of Black and Racially minoritised People is published by the English and Media Centre. Click here for more information.
‘This book is a deep-take on how modern western children's literature comes out of conflicts and traditions that have to be faced in a frank and thoughtful way. In this regard, it stands in contrast to studies that see children's books as 'simply' celebrations of childhood, or expressions of a need to delight young audiences. There are times then, this book is an uncomfortable read, as we are invited to look again at books that might sit in our heads as unquestioned and cosy sites of nostalgia and comfort. That said, this is a book that is urgently needed. Western societies manifest through their populations of all ages the consequences of both far-off imperial adventures and modern wars. This book challenges us to think about whether and how books for children can or should reflect, show and interrogate this. It is an essential read for anyone involved and interested in what children's literature has been, continues to be and could be.’
Michael Rosen
ABOUT THE EVENT
We are pleased to have Mehrunissa Shah and Lara Choksey as respondents to the book.
Open to all. Books will be available for purchase at the launch. Please register to attend at https://ccsc-secret-garden.eventbrite.co.uk
This book launch is part of the Institute of Advanced Studies Book Launch Series and organised by the Critical Childhood Studies Centre. The Centre is a home for world-leading scholarship about childhood as a socio-political, cultural, and historical phenomenon in diverse global contexts. The Centre provides a focal point for faculty and students at all levels in UCL to engage in innovative and multi-disciplinary research, teaching, and public engagement geared towards achieving social justice with and for children and young people.
For more information, email us at critical.childhood@ucl.ac.uk or join our mailing list
The event is co-sponsored by the UCL Sarah Parker Remond Centre for the Study of Racism and Racialisation, which explores the impact of racism - scientific, metaphysical and cultural.
About the Speakers
Darren Chetty
Darren Chetty is a lecturer (teaching) at UCL where he is an affiliate at the Sarah Parker Remond Centre for the Study of Racism and Racialisation and sits on the steering group of the Centre for Critical Childhood Studies. Prior to this, he taught for a number of years on the BA Education Studies at the UCL Institute of Education. He taught in primary schools for over twenty years and continues to work with schools on policy, curriculum and pedagogy. His PhD focused on Racism and 'Philosophy for Children'. His essay in the best-selling The Good Immigrant, 'You Can't Say That! Stories Have To Be About White People', has been used in schools and universities and shared widely in children’s and young adult publishing.
Karen Sands O’Connor
Karen Sands O’Connor is Visiting Professor at the University of Sheffield and a former British Academy Global Professor specialising in the history of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic children’s literature and publishing, and the author of three books on children’s literature. She created the first UK exhibition on children's literature and Black Britain, 'Listen to this Story!' which is touring the north of England, and she is developing a study centre in inclusive children's books at the University of Sheffield.
In addition to their Books for Keeps column, Darren and Karen advise on CLPE’s Reflecting Realities research and contributed to the CILIP Carnegie Awards Diversity Review.
Mehrunissa Shah
Mehrunissa Shah is chair of London Association for the Teaching of English. She has worked as an English & Media teacher in (and around) London, latterly as Head of the English and Media faculty at a large comprehensive school in Brent. She now works at the UCL Institute of Education, leading the PGCE Secondary English and English with Drama courses, as well as teaching on the MA English Education programme. She is currently researching the practice of working-class teachers in London.
Lara Choksey
Lara Choksey is Lecturer in Colonial and Postcolonial Literatures in the Department of English at University College London, where she is also Associate Faculty in the Sarah Parker Remond Centre for the Study of Racism and Racialisation. She researches the interplay of science and technology, critical race and postcolonial studies, and sociological realism in modern and contemporary literature. She has published articles and chapters in Essays and Studies, The Sociological Review, Journal of Literature and Science, Medical Humanities, Journal of Historical Geography, and in The Palgrave Handbook of Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Literature and Science. She edited a collection of lectures by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak into Readings (Seagull, 2014). Her book, Narrative in the Age of the Genome (Bloomsbury, 2021), considers measures of the human in genomic narratives.