Beloved

First of all, there is no incest in here. A review on here says there is, and there isn’t, so they probably didn’t read the book- just wanted to get that out of the way. It is not graphic. Being Toni Morrison, she never writes thing about whipping or raping straight out. In fact those words may not be in there. Instead, she uses symbology to depict the ramifications. Instead of “they whipped my back until it bled,” the book coyly describes first seeing wounds on a back as “a chokeberry tree” “blossoming” with “red.” Instead of “I don’t want these men to rape my daughter” it’s “avoid (the slave masters) invading (my) daughter’s private parts.” She is a skilled writer. This is about the subjective and collective emotional ramifications of slavery. This book is amazing. It takes place in the 1870s after the civil war as well as flashing back to the 1850s, a time when there were 3.4 million African slaves in the US. No, this book is not an exagerration. Yes, only around 25% of white people were slave owners at the time- but 3.4 MILLION Africans were enslaved. This book is creepy for sure. It revolves around an escaped enslaved woman who kills her infant daughter when her evil “masters” found out where she was hiding to avoid the little girl growing up being enslaved, raped, and treated like shit by these men. The ghost of the baby comes back to wreak havoc and question the morality of the decision. The characters deal with the changing times. YES, this happened, YES this is based on a true story, YES it was common, and YES it paints a lush picture of black pain and black joy in the 1800s America. A teenager definitely can “handle” this. I read graphic memoirs about the Holocaust when I was 14, and it lit up my empathy and brought me up to speed on the true state of history. Teenagers can handle this- trust me, it’s way more about morality than the video games they’re playing, the graphic rumors about sex they’re hearing, and whatever else they may be looking up on the Internet. There’s a reason this book won the Pulitzer. On top of being elegantly woven between two times and multiple storylines, the symbology, the complex syntax make it an enjoyable read, and the content would serve those well who want to explore the picture of the black people of 1800s that made America what it is today.

As a white girl growing up in Eastern Kentucky, this is the first black author I was ever exposed to. It wasn’t part of our main curriculum- I grabbed it off of an AP reading list as one of my “self selections” (and let’s be honest, the insinuation that it was “racy” is what drew me to it)- but it should have been. The people who think it is too graphic for high school students 1) are deluding themselves about what high schoolers are up to; and 2) aren’t aware of the content in the YA books their kids are reading; and 3)are missing the point. Beloved was the first time I ever “saw” slavery from a black point of view. Every lesson, up until beloved, had been a literally “whitewashed” depiction of beautiful plantations, kind masters and simple, big-hearted “workers”. That was not reality. Telling kids that was reality does not protect them, it just buys momentary comfort at the expense of empathy. Quite apart from the important and meaningful depiction of slavery, the language in this book is beautiful. Besides depicting a black protagonist, this is one of the few books I read at school that was written from a female perspective. This book is a great segue from “safe” and entertaining children’s stories into adult literature. The conversations sparked by this book will help students understand each other. Please don’t be dissuaded by screechy school-board moms who want to drag literature into a political agenda. The only people with something to fear from this book are racists.