Narrative Resistance and Identity Reconstruction: African Children’s Literature as Decolonial Praxis

Abstract

This paper discusses how African children’s literature plays a significant role as a crucial site of decolonial praxis. It addresses a persistent research gap in scholarship that privileges adult postcolonial texts. The paper argues that African-authored children’s books reclaim narrative agency, contest Eurocentric stereotypes, and foster identity formation and empowerment. To concretize the discussion, the paper focuses on two Anglophone examples -Chinua Achebe’s The Flute (1977) and Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s The Upright Revolution (2019). The study offers close readings of linguistic choices, cultural motifs, and representations of child agency. Methodologically, the study employs a thematic analysis grounded in postcolonial and decolonial theory and augmented by linguistic analysis of discourse patterns, lexical semantics, and syntactic agency that show how language itself serves as an effective tool of resistance through several textual and paratextual signals. It also seeks to examine the roots of African-authored books for young readers and the comparative context to show how communal ethics operate as decolonial strategies. Findings indicate that these narratives function as mirrors and safe spaces for African children, linking their oral traditions with present-day concerns while affirming indigenous languages, values, and epistemologies. The paper contributes to current debates about the significance of decolonial pedagogy and the systematic inclusion of African children’s books in school curricula.