Since we're well into black history month, I'm going to recall and rehash my favorite black authors and books.

I'll start with Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye. This book breaks readers' hearts as they learn about Pecola, who thinks herself ugly and wishes for blue eyes because she believes they are more beautiful than her brown ones.

Of course, this shows how she and all of us are socialized to believe in certain norms. She wants blue eyes because she reads the Dick and Jane books and she knows people are nicer to people that look like them. As a child, she doesn't yet truly understand prejudice or racism, but she feels the effects.

The book takes place in the Midwest during the Great Depression and delves into issues of neglectful parenting, sexual abuse of children and how a community fails to intervene.

We're left to question how the world is full of so much hate when most people yearn to be loved.