With Liberty and Justice for All Book Club: Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye

Free with advance RSVP.

August’s selection is the classic coming-of-age novel The Bluest Eye, by Nobel Prize-winning writer Toni Morrison. The Bluest Eye (1970) was Morrison’s first book in her prolific career and is a classic of American literature. The novel follows two young African American girls, Pecola and Claudia, as they reckon with racism, beauty, and their burgeoning womanhood.

Co-presented by Austin Public Library with discussion facilitated by librarians.

The Austin Public Library and The Contemporary Austin co-present a book club series, With Liberty and Justice for All, that draws on fiction, poetry and visual art to explore themes of racism, social justice, empathy, healing, and community. In a 2019 interview, artist Deborah Roberts said, “Toni Morrison right now, she’s in my studio whether she knows it or not. She’s sitting in there, I can hear her talking, and so I’d get another book.”

This month’s book club will begin with a private viewing of Deborah Roberts’ exhibition I’m, followed by a discussion facilitate by APL librarians on the open-air roof deck surrounded by Jim Hodges’ sculpture With Liberty and Justice for All (A Work in Progress).

Socially distanced seating provided, please wear a mask.
 
Click here to check out the book from Austin Public Libary.

Click here to buy the book.
 
About Book Club Leaders Angelica Johnson and Jeremy Garza:

Angelica Johnson is the Assistant Branch Manager at the Twin Oaks Branch of Austin Public Library. She recently moved to the Austin area and is hoping to build roots here. She has a great affinity for social justice causes that affirms the humanity and voices of marginalized groups while pushing for equitable structural change. Before entering management, she served as a Young Adult Librarian at Brooklyn Public Library where she worked closely with teens of diverse backgrounds to cultivate adequate programming and outreach efforts in addition to serving as an advocate for more teen spaces in the library.

Jeremy Garza is a Library Associate at the Twin Oaks Branch of the Austin Public Library, and graduate student at the Texas Woman’s University. He is a native Austinite, electric bike enthusiast, podcast addict, and tries to embrace Octavia Butler’s “Earthseed” virtues about change (especially in this city of constant transformation). As a librarian & community facilitator in-training, he is dedicated to the teachings of black feminisms and the mission of collective uplift for all people through life-long learning & grassroots community connection.