As LJ approaches its 150th year helping librarians curate collections, we offer modern reviews of titles published decades and centuries ago. These reviews highlight iconic works and provide professional assessments of classics that have appeared on banned-book lists.

★Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye. Knopf. Mar. 2007. 224p. ISBN 9780307278449. $16. F

Set in Lorain, OH, in the years following the Great Depression, the debut novel by Nobel Prize winner Morrison is a powerful work that centers the experience of Black girlhood and introduces readers to the author’s skillful command of language. Pecola Breedlove is an 11-year-old girl who believes she is ugly and prays to have blue eyes so the world will see her differently. Through Pecola’s family and community, the novel traces the generational trauma of racism: her mother, who has internalized white standards of beauty, is left feeling unworthy of love; her father, abandoned as a baby, was humiliated by two white men during his first sexual experience and perpetuates that humiliation and violence when he rapes and impregnates his young daughter. An outcast when her baby dies, Pecola descends into madness, believing that her eyes have finally turned blue. VERDICT Morrison’s unflinching depictions imbue her characters with a richness and complexity that directs readers to regard them as worthy of attention and love. Even in the most painful scenes, she compels readers not to look away. An important text for generating discussion on race, culture, and U.S. society, this is an essential work for public, high school, and academic libraries.