In my last post, I mentioned Toni Morrison’s motivation and sense of urgency for writing The Bluest Eye as stemming from her concern that far too many novels failed to acknowledge and fully develop young black girls as central characters. An exploration of African American novels that place attention on young black girls, such as Pecola Breedlove, present readers with both similar and dissimilar literary representations of the pressures that mold and shape black girls. Moreover, readers have the opportunity to consider how childhood representations and coming of age tales of young black girls coincide with the literary images of black women. It is at this critical site where African American children and young adults can find themselves in their reading, as they engage in that essential goal of adolescence –formulation of self, an identity.