Previous and Contemporary Children’s Literature: A Comparison of Chinua Achebe’s Chike and the River and Jude Idada’s Boom Boom

Since its inception in modern African literature, children’s literature has burgeoned into a unique subgenre for exploring and dissecting the perspectives and realities of the modern African child. Over time, African writers of diverse generations have produced different renderings of the aesthetic-cum-thematic preoccupations of children’s literature. But these differences are yet to be fully investigated by critics. Hence, this study examined the differences in the exploration of aesthetics and themes in previous and contemporary African children’s literature using Chinua Achebe’s Chike and the River and Jude Idada’s Boom Boom. The study found that the plot structure of previous African children’s literature is less complex than that of contemporary; the communal setting and lifestyle of the African child are more pronounced in previous children’s literature; the African child is offered greater freedom of expression in contemporary children’s literature; and contemporary children’s literature focuses more on modern subjects such as orthodox medicine and digitalisation. The study concludes that both previous and contemporary African children’s literature reflect the reality of the African child at a specific period.