Author: Toni Morrison
Publisher & Date: Vintage, 8 May 2007
Page Count: 206 pages
ISBN: 978-0307278449
Age/Reading Level: 14-18+/Grades 9-12+
Representation: Black main character
Other Information: Toni Morrison won the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature
Book Information
In Morrison’s acclaimed first novel, Pecola Breedlove—an 11-year-old Black girl in an America whose love for its blond, blue-eyed children can devastate all others—prays for her eyes to turn blue: so that she will be beautiful, so that people will look at her, so that her world will be different. This is the story of the nightmare at the heart of her yearning, and the tragedy of its fulfillment.
Challenges & Bans
The book has been challenged with some of the reasons cited including: “sexually explicit material,” “lots of graphic descriptions and lots of disturbing language,” and “an underlying socialist-communist agenda.”
Awards & Accolades
A Parade Best Book of All Time
