Bandon Public Library

Pecola Breedlove, a young eleven-year-old black girl, prays every day for beauty. Mocked by other children for the dark skin, curly hair, and brown eyes that set her apart, she yearns for the blond hair and blue eyes that she believes will allow her to finally fit in. Yet as her dreams grow more fervent, her life slowly starts to disintegrate in the face of adversity and strife. A powerful examination of our obsession with beauty and conformity.--From...

Staring unflinchingly into the abyss of slavery, this spellbinding novel transforms history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as intimate as a lullaby. Sethe, its protagonist, was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. She has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe's new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose...

The Color Purple is the story of two sisters -- one a missionary to Africa and the other a child wife living in the South -- who remain loyal to one another across time, distance, and silence. Beautifully imagined and deeply compassionate, this classic American literature is rich with passion, pain, inspiration, and an indomitable love of life--Cover

In Jackson, Mississippi, in 1962, there are lines that are not crossed. But, suddenly, three women, Aibileen, Minny, and Skeeter, realize that they are suffocating within the lines. Aibileen is a black maid, raising her seventeenth white child. Her best friend, Minny, is the sassiest woman in Mississippi. And Skeeter Phelan is just back from college, a white woman with a degree but, to her mother's chagrin, no ring on her finger. With the civil rights...

In 1923, fifteen-year-old Hattie Shepherd flees Georgia and settles in Philadelphia, hoping for a chance at a better life. Instead, she marries a man who will bring her nothing but disappointment and watches helplessly as her firstborn twins succumb to an illness a few pennies could have prevented. Hattie gives birth to nine more children whom she raises with grit and mettle and not an ounce of the tenderness they crave. She vows to prepare them for...

In the course of his wanderings from a Southern Negro college to New York's Harlem, an American black man becomes involved in a series of adventures. Introduction explains circumstances under which the book was written. Ellison won the National Book Award for this searing record of a black man's journey through contemporary America. Unquestionably, Ellison's book is a work of extraordinary intensity--powerfully imagined and written with a savage,...

An simple introduction to African-American history, from Revolutionary-era slavery up to the election of President Obama

"A powerful, timely debut, The Turner House marks a major new contribution to the story of the American family. The Turners have lived on Yarrow Street for over fifty years. Their house has seen thirteen children grown and gone--and some returned; it has seen the arrival of grandchildren, the fall of Detroit's East Side, and the loss of a father. The house still stands despite abandoned lots, an embattled city, and the inevitable shift outward to...

In 1946, Laura McAllan tries to adjust after moving with her husband and two children to an isolated cotton farm in the Mississipi Delta.

From the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner: Two girls who grow up to become women. Two friends who become something worse than enemies. This brilliantly imagined novel brings us the story of Nel Wright and Sula Peace, who meet as children in the small town of Medallion, Ohio.
One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years
Nel and Sula’s devotion is fierce enough to withstand bullies and the...