It’s writer Toni Morrison’s birthday (1931-2019). An author, editor, and professor, Morrison was the first African American woman to win the Nobel Prize in literature. In her writing, Morrison explored the lived realities of Black Americans with lyrical prose, psychological depth, and unflinching honesty. As an editor at Random House, she championed Black writers and thinkers. Here are just a few of Morrison's works we have in our collection, showcasing the breadth of her work.
The Bluest Eye
Set in the 1940s, this novel follows Pecola Breedlove, a young Black girl who internalizes white beauty standards and believes herself ugly. Traumatized by extreme poverty, family abuse, and community neglect, Pecola desires blue eyes, believing they will make her loved. The novel explores the devastating impact of racism, incest, and internalized self-hatred.
A Toni Morrison Treasury
A collection of eight children's books by Toni Morrison, which includes retellings of some of Aesop's fables as well as stories of friendship and imagination
The Origin of Others
America's foremost novelist reflects on the themes that preoccupy her work and increasingly dominate national and world politics: race, fear, borders, the mass movement of peoples, the desire for belonging.
Jazz
Set in 1920s Harlem, Toni Morrison's Jazz is a lyrical novel exploring love, obsession, and the legacy of the Great Migration. The plot centers on middle-aged Joe Trace, who murders his young lover, Dorcas, and his wife, Violet, who attempts to mutilate the corpse at the funeral. Through a non-linear, jazz-like narrative, the story reveals their pasts, exploring how trauma and desire shape their lives.
The Big Box
Because they do not abide by the rules written by the adults around them, three children are judged unable to handle their freedom and forced to live in a box with three locks on the door.
Desdemona
A play, reimagining Shakespeare’s Othello from the perspective of the heroine Desdemona.
Remember: The Journey to School Integration
This book combines historical images with imagined thoughts and feelings of the children involved, creating a powerful and emotional narrative about the struggle for equality.
What Moves at the Margin
Collection of essays, speeches, and reviews by Toni Morrison.
God Help the Child
A tale about the way the sufferings of childhood can shape, and misshape, the life of the adult. At the center: a young woman who calls herself Bride, whose stunning blue-black skin is only one element of her beauty, her boldness and confidence, her success in life, but which caused her light-skinned mother to deny her even the simplest forms of love. There is Booker, the man Bride loves, and loses to anger. Rain, the mysterious white child with whom she crosses paths. And finally, Bride's mother herself, Sweetness, who takes a lifetime to come to understand that "what you do to children matters. And they might never forget
The Book of Mean People
A young bunny finds a unique way to cope with the various mean people in his life.