The Bluest Eye

The most disturbing violence in the novel is the rape of an 11-year-old girl. Graphic descriptions of it include the thoughts of the child molester, who sees the act as loving. Claudia and Frieda's mother hits them when she is angry. Their father chases a man with a shotgun. In the Breedlove household, Polly and Cholly physically fight often, and Cholly is said to have set fire to their home. A boy abuses and mortally injures a pet. Claudia is an angry kid who resents the idea that white or mixed-race kids are considered prettier or better than black kids; she describes attacking a couple of other kids and feelings of violent anger toward light-skinned kids.

There are numerous descriptions of sexual feelings and events in The Bluest Eye. Mr. Henry interacts with two prostitutes. A boy's mother is described as having an aversion to sex; her sexual interactions with her husband are reserved and obligatory. Three prostitutes, who live in the flat above the Breedloves, engage in bawdy talk in front of Pecola. In the Breedlove household, Polly's sexual experiences with her husband are described somewhat poetically, where colors represent strong feelings of desire and enjoyment. However, we learn that Cholly's feelings about sex have been affected by a disturbing first sexual experience. A man turns out to be a pedophile.

There's a fair amount of profane, rude and cruel language: "f--k," "bitch," "p---y," "t-t," the "N" word.

Cholly is a known drunk and becomes violent when he drinks.

Parents need to know that The Bluest Eye is the first novel by the late Nobel-prize winning author Toni Morrison, originally published in 1970. Set in 1941 Ohio, the book is a complex investigation of ideas of physical beauty among blacks and whites, and the ways racial attitudes, and other life experiences, damage the lives of these characters. Pecola Breedlove's self-hatred, and her wish for blue eyes, is an outgrowth of the way she's treated by her family and the world in which she lives. Sexual behavior is also very complicated in this novel. Sex acts and feelings between adults are described, and more than one grown man behaves inappropriately with young girls. There is also incest and domestic violence, including the rape of an 11-year-old girl. Teen readers may need some adult guidance to understand the world of the novel, in which many characters seem driven by emotional and sexual feelings they can't control. Because of the book's edgy content, there have been efforts to ban it from schools and libraries.