DuBois' use of fairy tale conventions and efforts to re-write existing traditions, extended beyond the choice of title for The Brownies' Book. As editor, he filled the magazine with not just modern fairy tales and poetry, but also a new conception of black self-worth. To fo so, he employed a mode of narration that resembled oral storytelling and the fairy tale tradition that emerged from it. DuBois did not author every piece printed within The Brownies' Book, but, as editor, he heavily influenced the magazine's style, voice, and content. At the very least, he accepted or rejected the various submissions for publication. Therefore I will discuss the overall narrative form of The Brownies' Book as the reflection of a single authorial persona--primarily DuBois, though Fauset made considerable editorial contributions--rather than as individual products of various authors.

Barbara Wall considers "subtleties of address" to be the defining factor in children's literature, and she describes three possible relationships between the narrator and the narratee (3). During the Victorian era, authors favored a double-voiced discourse that heeded an adult audience as carefully as it considered the younger audience, simultaneously writing to children and "winking" at adults (21). The single-voiced address, the most commonly used, involves a voice more genuinely concerned about the child reader without condescending to the child's level. The dual voice somewhat combines the two previous approaches. The Brownies' Book depends most frequently on the most didactic form of the three, the single-voiced address.

One of the most successful approaches to single-voiced narration equates the narrator to "a friendly adult talking seriously and without condescension to children" (Wall 30). This narrator places him or herself within the framework of children's experiences and knowledge base and comfortably engages children on their own terms. Youngsters recognize an author's sincere delight in telling them a story, and as Wall notes, "[m]any child readers respond favourably [sic] to the sense of security given to them by the familiar voice of the explaining, rather than patronizing, narrator" (Wall 18). Moreover, this one-on-one conversational style resembles the intimacy of an oral storyteller and listener as well as the recognizable narrative format of fairy tales. Thus, in invoking something they know, DuBois establishes credibility with his child audience from the start. He wins their trust so that he could get right to the point.

In "The Land Behind the Sun," for example, Yolande DuBois spins a poignant and empowering tale about the magazine's namesake fairies by speaking directly and affably to her audience. She begins by addressing readers as if already engaged in a conversation with them. She asks, "You didn't know there was such a place did you?" (2: 331). She refers to the land behind the sun where brownies, who bear the responsibility of looking out for young African Americans on this side of the sun, live in splendor. One evening, young Magdalen discovers "the prettiest little figure you ever saw" on her bed waiting to take her to the magic land (331). The eight-inch-high figure, Topaz, "was entirely gold. Her little hands and face were a dull golden-brown, her eyes were like a Topaz, her filmy draperies seemed to shimmer with sunlight, and her hair shone like pure gold spun into threads" (331). Once in the magic land, Magdalen discovers, to her delight, that all the inhabitants--including the queen--are brown. She also learns that the queen's duties include rescuing bad children from the grips of "the Wicked Witch of Bogland," described as "a bent figure in black with a white distorted face and hard gray eyes" (333). Usually, the queen's most potent bargaining tool is gold and silver, for the only white-faced character in this story exudes materialism. Thus, in true fairy style form, DuBois sharply delineates between good and bad, a dichotomy that also parallels black/ white and generous/ greedy. The brownies may possess wealth but, unlike the witch, their actions are not motivated by riches, and so their bejeweled appearances can be guiltlessly admired. Additionally, Magdalen eventually saves the brownie king from the witch's grasp by melting her with water, suggesting a distinction between clean and dirty, as well.

The story shows Africans as the fairer race on multiple levels, but it does so while maintaining a confidential tone. Magdalen's parents think she dreamed up the brownies and her adventures with them, but the narrator has the last word, saying: "But she knew quite well it wasn't a dream and we knew it too, but we aren't telling all we know" (333). By keeping this newfound truth about the black race a secret between narrator and narratee, DuBois presents the knowledge as that much more precious. It is information that neither their parents nor the white world have been privy too, which, in fact, is DuBois' point: by infusing children with the confidence and self-respect their parents had not known, he hoped to give black children greater tools with which to face the world.

The child eventually falls asleep and wakes to a Fairy Godmother tapping her shoulder and granting her wish for golden curls. Dolly excitedly runs off to show her best friend, but her glee turns to horror as her friend, neighbor, aunt, and finally mother rush from her sight, as if they have seen a stranger. With not only curly blond hair, but also the pale skin and blue eyes that accompany such ringlets, Dolly was a stranger. Luckily, Dolly wakes, finds her own dark hair on her head, and exclaims " 'I just love my 'cwinkly' black curls' " (352). Throughout the tale, the narrator lovingly described Dolly's own "soft 'cwinkly'…ringlets around her little, dimpled face of rosy tan," and suggests that to change her hair would be to change a piece of her identity (351). The reader, however, sees the situation through Dolly's eyes and must slowly learn that a defining--and beautiful--aspect of Dolly's African Americanness is, indeed, her hair.

However, "Dolly's Dream," and other, similarly themed narratives, highlight a troubling pedagogic philosophy. DuBois intently focuses on physicalities, and most especially color, resulting in the alienation of black children from the white race and from members of their own race. Consider the story of "Impossible Kathleen" by Augusta Bird. At the end of her sophomore year at Fisk, Kathleen, who has been raised since infancy by her grandmother, faces financial difficulty and the prospect of not returning to school. While her grandmother and aunt try to remedy the situation, they send Kathleen to the country to care for her father and three "shabby, dirty" young half-siblings (1: 299). Here, Kathleen discovers her true calling, to re-open the local school and educate these simple folk who have never even "heard any real music before" (303). The story establishes a sharp distinction between city and country, the educated and the ignorant, the elite and the masses. The narrator further complicates the matter, however, in the physical descriptions of Kathleen and her friend Crystal: "Crystal was much the prettier of the two girls. She was just about two shades lighter than Kathleen and nearly two inches shorter" (300). Color is dismissed as an insignificant quality no more consequential and no more controllable than height. However, in this story, which ends with Kathleen choosing the life of a "mission" while Crystal continues her schooling, the issue of skin color assumes great importance.

Dianne Johnson rightly argues that "[t]hrough the visual representations, DuBois and Fauset wanted to assure those children of the sun that their skin color does not lessen their inherent humanity" (19). This color-focused commentary, however, presents an even more disturbing situation for young African American children--the presentation of a hierarchy within their own race. Toward the beginning of the tale, when Kathleen first hears that she may not return to school, the narrator observes of the distraught girl: "It was easy for [Kathleen] to understand how girls who had hoped and planned for some great career might have moments as these, but she knew she did not belong to such a class. She had never in her whole life longed or wished for any of these things" (298). Such commentary predicts Kathleen's ultimate position as a missionary rather than an academic, as if her darker skin predetermined her contribution to the world. To be fair, the narrator also notes that "she began to understand that it was no mistake, some great destiny did await her" (298). Neither this fleeting emotion, however, nor the grandmother's tears and trembles of joy upon learning of Kathleen's decision adequately balance the final lines of the story: "She realized her grand-daughter's life was really cut out to be a mission instead of the grand career which she and her sister had planned for her" (303). In short, the work of rural educator is presented as a second choice, one well-suited to a dark-skinned child, "whom the spirit did not often move to action" (301). Thus, the choice of title suggests that it is this situation of an intra-race class struggle, rather than Kathleen herself, that is "impossible."