Long seen by writers as a vital political force of the nation, children's literature has been an important means not only of mythologizing a certain racialized past but also, because of its intended audience, of promoting a specific racialized future. Stories about slavery for children have served as primers for racial socialization. This first comprehensive study of slavery in children's literature, Slavery in American Children's Literature, 1790-2010, also historicizes the ways generations of authors have drawn upon antebellum literature in their own re-creations of slavery.