I just downloaded a book and changed the screen from white to black. Then I dimmed the brightness all the way down and now I have a black screen. I cannot see the settings to adjust the brightness back to something I can see. I've downloaded other books afterwards and they maintain the black settings that I have so none can be read. This is obviously not idiot proof. Any ideas on how I can correct this?

Try to do it opposite way round or go to setting a display

Swipe down from the upper right corner. In the middle of the screen, you may see a button appear for a few seconds, tap it. It may give you access to a slide with which you can adjust the brightness of the screen up or down. If you dim it too much, you may not see a screen! Here is a page showing how to increase brightness. --However, it should serve to show you where the controls are.


http://www.instructables.com/id/Fixing-lost-brightness-on-an-RCA-tablet

go into settings and look for personalisation the change your background if that dosent work its probably on night mode or you have it on auto set

The option to keep the display bright is not found under settings in the Android app, but under the font settings. If you tap the centre of your screen whilst reading your book the icons will appear at the top of your screen. Click the font size icon, and a drop down list of settings will appear. The one at the bottom deals with brightness.

Is the Kindle a Paper White version, or akin to the original Kindle version? If so, there is no backlight, so no screen brightness adjustment. You'll have to do the screen brightness adjustment like you would for a book.

Triple tap anywhere on the page and the brightness control should show. Uncheck auto if it's checked and move the slider to the right.

Try restarting it

Adjusting Screen Brightness The screen on the Kindle Fire uses more power than anything else, and the brighter the screen, the more battery power it uses. To increase battery life, you can lower the brightness of the display.
Unlock the rest of this book. Swipe the status bar down to open the Settings drawer.
Unlock the rest of this book. Tap Brightness.
Unlock the rest of this book. Slide the brightness control to the right to increase brightness and to the left to decrease brightness.

seems like you may have the auto brightness turned on. switch it off and set the brighness to your needs, but be careful, the brighter you have it the more battery you are using

Sorry about this.
Well, seeing it is a new tablet, either of two things can be done.

Your tab is booting beyond Startup but you ain't seeing it because of the contrast/black screen setting.

To confirm; step into a dark room/space and hold a flashlight very close to the screen, you'd see your tab is at its home screen already.

Anyway, you will have to default factory reset it as it is or you could attempt to navigate (while in the dark room/space and using/holding the flashlight) Swipe to open/unlock it----Settings----display and brighteness-----brightness----'move cursor up to increase brightness'. Done.

Second option with dark room/space is tedious and strenuous.

Factory/hard reset is an easy option to try.
At the same time, hold/press both the volume up key/button and the power button/key.
Follow the system prompt afterwards.

Or

Press/hold down the volume down button/key and the power button.

Follow the system prompt thereafter to factory/hard reset your tab.

Best of luck.