The Bluest Eye

The New York Times bestselling novel by the Nobel Prize-winning author of Beloved and Sula. An unforgettable story about a young girl, her struggle for self-worth, and her quest for beauty in a world plagued by racism and misogyny. Pecola Breedlove prays each day for beauty. She is an 11-year-old black girl who longs to be white. Her family life is difficult, as her parents are constantly fighting a losing battle against poverty, alcoholism and boredom. Pecola lives with her mother and father in Lorain, Ohio in 1940, during World War II when America's cities were being bombed by the Japanese, when lynchings of blacks took place regularly in Southern states like Mississippi and Georgia. In desperate loneliness she becomes obsessed with the image of Shirley Temple, a symbol of innocence and purity which she equates with beauty. Her longing for physical traits that are considered beautiful by society leads Pecola down a path from childlike wonder to madness and death (summary from amazon).