# Courtney Weikle‑Mills, "Sugarcoated Ethics: Children’s Literature and Atlantic Enslavement" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2026) Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-literary-studies-1048453/courtney-weikle-mills-sugarcoated-ethics-children-s-literature-and-atlantic-enslavement-johns-hopkins-up-2026 Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-literary-studies-1048453/courtney-weikle-mills-sugarcoated-ethics-children-s-literature-and-atlantic-enslavement-johns-hopkins-up-2026.md Podcast: [New Books in Literary Studies](https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-literary-studies-1048453) Published: 2026-08-29T08:00:00+00:00 Episode link: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/NBNK2651751608.mp3 Audio file: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/NBNK2651751608.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/new-books-in-literary-studies-1048453/episodes/courtney-weikle-mills-sugarcoated-ethics-children-s-literature-and-atlantic-enslavement-johns-hopkins-up-2026 Duration seconds: 3552 ## Resource What if children’s literature was never as innocent as we imagine? In Sugarcoated Ethics: Children’s Literature and Atlantic Enslavement (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2026), the relationship between childhood reading and Atlantic slavery is brought into sharp focus. The book argues that children’s literature did not merely emerge alongside the plantation economy; it was deeply shaped by it. Sugar, sweetness, moral instruction, and domestic comfort were all tied to systems of enslavement and colonial trade, even as the violence behind them was softened or erased in stories for young readers. The book also examines how ideas of white civility shaped childhood. White children, particularly girls, were cast as symbols of innocence, refinement, and moral feeling, while Black children were excluded from those same protections. Through analyses of persecuted-heroine narratives, missionary education, and colonial schooling, the study reveals how children’s literature helped normalise racial hierarchy across the British Empire. Yet the project is equally attentive to resistance and alternative ethical traditions. Afro-Caribbean oral storytelling, including Anansi tales, songs, and folktales, emerges as a powerful counterarchive. These traditions preserved histories of survival, collective memory, and resistance that colonial print culture often attempted to suppress. The discussion of the “Queen Mary” Fireburn song, for instance, highlights how storytelling became a form of ethical education and cultural continuity across generations. One of the book’s most striking contributions is its global scope. Children’s texts on slavery circulated far beyond Britain and the Caribbean, travelling to Africa, Asia, and the Middle East via missionary and imperial networks.… ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/new-books-in-literary-studies-1048453/episodes/courtney-weikle-mills-sugarcoated-ethics-children-s-literature-and-atlantic-enslavement-johns-hopkins-up-2026/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-literary-studies-1048453/courtney-weikle-mills-sugarcoated-ethics-children-s-literature-and-atlantic-enslavement-johns-hopkins-up-2026.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.