Editors’ Introduction: Storying and Restorying as Cathartic Hope

Abstract

Other crises are evident in our work around the nation and the world: the climate emergency;the persistence of gun violence, war, and genocide;the mental health crisis among young people (and people of all ages);rampant inflation exacerbated by corporate greed;a lack of affordable and safe housing. The authors document a participatory comicmaking project joining eighth graders in a public alternative school in Toronto, their teacher, a research team, and teacher candidates from a local university. Drawing on key concepts within Afropessimism, Black critical theory, and Black futurity, the authors outline a pattern of anti-Blackness shown within the books, but also consider how the novels connect the past, present, and future in their reflections of how Black girls across time and place have imagined alternative ways forward.