Nella Larsen’s Paperwork: Reading to Black Children in the Harlem Branch Library

Harlem Renaissance writers and educators disagreed as to whether Black children should be prepared for or protected from knowledge of racism. Texts written for African American children of the period generally foreground positive models, Black achievement, and group solidarity. However, books and stories selected for “story hours” by the diverse, integrated, staff of the children’s room in the Harlem branch library were written almost exclusively by white authors for (and about) white children. As head of the children’s room at the 135th Street branch, Nella Larsen (like other librarians) generally selected books fully acceptable to Anne Carroll Moore, the influential white supervisor of children’s services at the New York Public Library. Nevertheless, many of Larsen’s choices have a racial logic. Drawing on a range of administrative documents (some written by Larsen herself), this essay argues that monthly reports on exhibits, story hours, and other activities provide a basis for informed speculation about Larsen’s goals as a children’s librarian. Her neglected Children’s Room Reports anticipate stylistic and thematic aspects of her fiction while suggesting what drew her to such children’s books as The Story of Doctor Dolittle or The Velveteen Rabbit. Extending recent work by Eric Gardner, Brigitte Fielder, and Nazera Sadiq Wright, the author asks “what was intended” when a librarian of color chose a specific “white” text for African American children. The essay claims that Larsen carefully pondered what sort of reading would best prepare a young Black child to cope with racialization. Her conclusion was: nondidactic stories depicting fluid subject positions, texts that offer opportunities for reflection, aesthetic pleasure, and emotional experience.