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Title details for The Dark Fantastic by Ebony Elizabeth Thomas - Available

The Dark Fantastic

Race and the Imagination from Harry Potter to the Hunger Games

#13 in series

by Ebony Elizabeth Thomas
ebook
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1 of 1 copy available

Winner, 2022 Children's Literature Association Book Award, given by the Children's Literature Association
Winner, 2020 World Fantasy Awards
Winner, 2020 British Fantasy Awards, Nonfiction
Finalist, Creative Nonfiction IGNYTE Award, given by FIYACON for BIPOC+ in Speculative Fiction

Reveals the diversity crisis in children's and young adult media as not only a lack of representation, but a lack of imagination
Stories provide portals into other worlds, both real and imagined. The promise of escape draws people from all backgrounds to speculative fiction, but when people of color seek passageways into the fantastic, the doors are often barred. This problem lies not only with children's publishing, but also with the television and film executives tasked with adapting these stories into a visual world. When characters of color do appear, they are often marginalized or subjected to violence, reinforcing for audiences that not all lives matter.
The Dark Fantastic is an engaging and provocative exploration of race in popular youth and young adult speculative fiction. Grounded in her experiences as YA novelist, fanfiction writer, and scholar of education, Thomas considers four black girl protagonists from some of the most popular stories of the early 21st century: Bonnie Bennett from the CW's The Vampire Diaries, Rue from Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games, Gwen from the BBC's Merlin, and Angelina Johnson from J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter. Analyzing their narratives and audience reactions to them reveals how these characters mirror the violence against black and brown people in our own world.
In response, Thomas uncovers and builds upon a tradition of fantasy and radical imagination in Black feminism and Afrofuturism to reveal new possibilities. Through fanfiction and other modes of counter-storytelling, young people of color have reinvisioned fantastic worlds that reflect their own experiences, their own lives. As Thomas powerfully asserts, "we dark girls deserve more, because we are more."

  • Creators

  • Series

    Postmillennial Pop

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    May 21, 2019

  • Formats

    • Kindle Book

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9781479864195

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9781479864195
      • File size: 729 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • School Library Journal

      Starred review from May 1, 2019

      Thomas (Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania) synthesizes theory from several disciplines to build her model of "the dark fantastic"-a cycle in which Black female characters are sidelined in mainstream fantasy narratives for young adults. Readers unfamiliar with cultural criticism or the four properties discussed-"Harry Potter," the book and film The Hunger Games, the BBC's Merlin, and the CW's The Vampire Diaries-are offered a clear way in to understanding the dark fantastic cycle and why breaking it matters. Thomas writes as an academic but also brings in the personal, quoting DeBarge lyrics when reflecting on the role of fantasy in her Detroit girlhood and sharing the story of her involvement with, and subsequent departure from, an early online "Harry Potter" community. The final chapter, "Hermione Is Black," focuses primarily on "restorying" accomplished by diverse and interactive fandoms. Kid lit professionals concerned that no newer texts are covered will find the case studies laced throughout with mentions of more current works and controversies. VERDICT Valuable for introducing readers to a range of concepts (critical race, reader response, postcolonial, and monster theory), this is an important work of criticism on an underexamined topic.-Miriam DesHarnais, Towson University, MD

      Copyright 2019 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

    • The Horn Book

      July 1, 2019
      Thomas explores the entrenched concept (and construct) of the Dark Fantastic ( my term for the role that racial difference plays in our fantastically storied imaginations ), and the imagination gap that results from a dearth of (positive) diverse representation in mainstream speculative fiction. Following an introduction and a theory-setting Chapter 1, Thomas presents chapters on each of four topics: the Hunger Games, the BBC's Merlin, the Vampire Diaries, and Harry Potter. Thomas's writing is dense and academic; however, copious personal anecdotes and astute observations ground the theories in applicable, real-life practices for readers who have general interests in fandoms or race and representation in contemporary sci-fi/fantasy. elissa Gershowitz

      (Copyright 2019 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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