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This study analyzes the relationship between race and genre in four of Toni Morrison's novels: The Bluest Eye, Tar Baby, Jazz, and Beloved. Heinert argues how Morrison's novels revise conventional generic forms such as bildungsroman, folktales, slave narratives, and the formal realism of the novel itself. This study goes beyond formalist analyses to show how these revisions expose the relationship between race, conventional generic forms, and the dominant culture. Morrison's revisions critique the conventional roles of African Americans as subjects of and in the genre of the novel, and (re)write roles which instead privilege their subjectivity.This study provides readers with new ways of understanding Morrison's novels. Whereas critics often fault Morrison for breaking with traditional forms and resisting resolution in her novels, this analysis show how Morrison's revisions shift the narrative truth of the novel from its representation in conventional forms to its interpretation by the readers, who are responsible for constructing their own resolution or version of narrative truth.These revisions expose how the dominant culture has privileged specific forms of narration; in turn, these forms privilege the values of the dominant culture. Morrison's novels attempt to undermine this privilege and rewrite the canon of American literature. ... Read more

Book Description

Product Description
This study analyzes the relationship between race and genre in four of Toni Morrison's novels: The Bluest Eye, Tar Baby, Jazz, and Beloved. Heinert argues how Morrison's novels revise conventional generic forms such as bildungsroman, folktales, slave narratives, and the formal realism of the novel itself. This study goes beyond formalist analyses to show how these revisions expose the relationship between race, conventional generic forms, and the dominant culture. Morrison's revisions critique the conventional roles of African Americans as subjects of and in the genre of the novel, and (re)write roles which instead privilege their subjectivity.This study provides readers with new ways of understanding Morrison's novels. Whereas critics often fault Morrison for breaking with traditional forms and resisting resolution in her novels, this analysis show how Morrison's revisions shift the narrative truth of the novel from its representation in conventional forms to its interpretation by the readers, who are responsible for constructing their own resolution or version of narrative truth.These revisions expose how the dominant culture has privileged specific forms of narration; in turn, these forms privilege the values of the dominant culture. Morrison's novels attempt to undermine this privilege and rewrite the canon of American literature. ... Read more

Book Description

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"This is a book about mean people. Some mean people are big. Some little people are mean." In Toni Morrison's second illustrated book collaboration with her son, Slade, she offers a humorous look at how children experience meanness and anger in our world. The world and its language can be confusing to young people. To them, meanness can have many shapes, sizes, and sounds. " My mother is mean when she says I don't listen. She says, "Do you hear me?" I can't hear her when she is screaming. This wise child knows that meanness can be a whisper or a shout, a smile or a frown. Young readers know about meanness, too, and will feel satisfied by having their perspective championed in The Book of Mean People.Amazon.com Review
Pulitzer Prize-winner Toni Morrison returns with her son Slade for a second kids' book, this one a catalog of the "mean people" in a young rabbit's life. The results, happily, make for much more fun than the Morrison duo's weirdly subtle The Big Box.

"This is a book about mean people," begins our tiny hero, and almost immediately we realize that illustrator Pascal Lemaître is going to give cartoonist Matt Groening a run for his money when it comes to goofily rendered rabbits. Each "mean" person gets playful, exaggerated, kid-perspective treatment from Lemaître, whether we're seeing a towering dad who barely fits onto two pages ("Some mean people are big") or a mother who's using her nearly telescopic arm to force veggies down our hero's throat ("There are people who smile when they are being mean"). The rabbit's "Mean People" book gets assembled page by page, and no one is spared--not grandparents, brothers, teachers, not even a babysitter with an alarm clock five times the size of her head.

The Morrisons maintain some of their Big Box subtlety by begging the question--of both kids and grownups--of why and whether and which of these people are really "mean" at all. (Even young kids will see the difference between making somebody get out of bed in the morning and tearing the wings off a butterfly.) Whatever the lesson, The Book of Mean People ends inevitably, triumphantly--"I will smile anyway!"--with a joyous, naked plunge into a flowery forest. ("How about that!") (Ages 4 to 8) --Paul Hughes ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

Wow! What is wrong with people?
I cannot believe how much negativity people put out. First of all this is supposed to be a cute and humorous book about what is considered mean. Children feel so many people in their lives are mean, because they can't understand everything just yet. This is not a book to teach children the differences between someone who is mean, and someone who is not!! This book validates children's feelings, and as an adult you can take the time to explain that people who tell you what to do are not really mean.

Is this book meant for a toddler with very limited experiences and understanding. OF COURSE NOT!!! So stop reading it to toddlers. This is meant for children who can clearly understand the tongue-in-cheek. That is the target audience. I read this book to my second grade classes every year. Do they truly believe everyone that tells them what to do is mean? NO. But it does help them deal with other mean children. It helps them feel like they can cope when people are really mean to them. I tell them that you will always find mean people around you, how you react is more important. I also believe that they can even reflect and understand that not all the people in their lives are really not mean afterall. However children need to be old enough to be able to make that connection.

This is an excellent book, it flows like poetry, the illustrations are great, and children enjoy it. My students could hear it everyday. It is short and sweet.

My Book of Mean People
The is a terrific way for children to express their anger and fears about people who frustrate, control, threaten, tease, or ignore them - all with a sense of humor. I am a child/family psychologist and often provide this journal to my young clients as we work to process negative emotions.

Missed the Mark!
I am sadly dissapointed by this book.Toni Morrison is one of my favorite authors--for adults.As a children's librarian, I think this book has missed the mark.My experience with the intended audience for this book, is they will miss the point and take it very literally.The ending appears to quickly close a book that seems to have had no real point from it's inception.

Very disappointing!!!!
I bought this book for my 5 year old daughter hoping it would help with the bully issue, but after reading it, I hid it. I showed the book to three other adults who also thought it was somewhat frightening and depressing for a child. An adult might think the book is somewhat humorous as to how a child labels people who set limits, babies who pull hair, teachers who correct homework etc. all as being mean. A child sees this book as justification that mom is mean if she makes me eat vegetables. It seems to say to the child that everyone in the whole world is mean. A somewhat pessimistic and dark look at humanity. Not cool for kids! Save your money!!!(...)

A chance for discussion
I can certainly see why some would disagree with the portrayl of parents, teachers, etc. as mean but I agreee with some of the other positive reviews.I think the Morrision's give children validation for their experience of these expectations as "mean".As a parent it reminds me to not take it so personally or explain why it's not mean to make my son eat his breakfast but instead to acknowledge that in his experience it is mean.That doesn't make me change my decision but it does let me honor his feelings too.As a family therapist I think it can be a nice opening for parents and children to talk about how our feelings don't always match others intentions.And even more importantly it can be a chance to encourage children to talk about how to deal with feeling like they are being treated unfairly (a common complaint among children of almost any age).I would say that you should give it a chance, if nothing else it's a cute little book that gives your kid someone (even if they're fictional) who really understands their feelings. ... Read more

Product Description
Una madre: Sethe, la esclava que mata a su propia hija para salvarla del horror, para que la indignidad del presente no tenga futuro posible. Una hija: Beloved, la nina que desde su nacimiento se alimento de leche mezclada con sangre, y poco a poco fue perdiendo contacto con la realidad por la voluntad de un carino demasiado denso. Una experiencia: el crimen como unica arma contra el dolor ajeno, el amor como unica justificacion ante el delito y la muerte como paradojica salvacion ante una vida destinada a la esclavitud. Con este dolor y este amor en apariencia indecibles, la ganadora del Premio Nobel de Literatura 1993 ha construido una soberbia novela, que en 1988 le valio el Premio Pulitzer. ... Read more

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In this clever riff on Aesop, Poppy feels guilty when he accidentally drives over Snake, and he decides to risk being bitten in order to free the sassy reptile. But smake wants more. This is a sly tale about who gets the last laugh.

We, the creators of Who's Got Game? were inspired by the wonder of Aesop's Fables -- their vitality, their endless demand for more interpretations. In our versions the original stories are opened up and their moralisitic endings reimagined; the victim might not lose; the timid gets a chance to become strong; the fool can gain insight; the powerful may lose their grip. ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN. More than a play on these beloved fables, Who's Got Game? is AESOP LIVE! ... Read more

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Examines the manifestations of racism, sexism, and homophobia in the literary works of Shakespeare, Mary Shelley, Joseph Conrad, and Toni Morrison. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Excellent Toni Morrison Resource
Dr. Bjork's "The Novels of Toni Morrison" is must have resource for anyone researching Toni Morrison and her works. The author not only equips the researcher with well developed information, Bjork also offers an excellent work cited list at the end of this resource. This should be one of the first stops for a Toni Morrison researcher. Highly recommended for any academic libraries literature collection.
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This collection of essays critically interrogates Toni Morrison's use of the Bible in her novels, examining the ways in which the author plays on the original text to raise issues of spirituality as it affects race, gender, and class. Ideal for courses on Morrison or on explorations of the intersection of religion and literature, this collection treats its topic with sophistication, considering "religion" in its broadest possible sense, and examining syncretic theologies as well as mainstream religions in its attempt to locate Morrison's work in a spiritual-theological nexus. ... Read more

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On first consideration, Nobel prize winning African-American author Toni Morrison would seem to have little in common with Virginia Woolf, the British writer who challenged Victorian concepts of womanhood. But Woolf's achievement and influence have been enduring, so much so that Morrison wrote her masters thesis on Woolf and William Faulkner. In that thesis, Morrison gives special attention to issues of isolation, and she notes that for Woolf, isolation brought a sense of freedom that the attached could never comprehend. This book examines the literary relationship between Woolf and Morrison.

In her own novels, Morrison redefined Woolf's concept of isolation in terms of American racism. While Morrison's female characters are clearly outsiders, they can nevertheless experience a sense of community that Woolf's characters cannot. Woolf's female characters, on the other hand, are often alienated because of their repressed erotic longing for women. Both Morrison and Woolf consider the severe obstacles the female artist must encounter and overcome before she can create art. This volume looks at the similarities that link Morrison and Woolf together despite their racial, ethnic, national, and historical differences, and it examines how differing structures of domination define their art.

Product Description
Toni Morrison is one of America's foremost living writers, and the first black woman to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature ( in 1993). This study encompasses the eight novels that she has published to date, including Love (2003) and focuses on certain abiding preoccupations in her fiction especially with the black American presencein America the changing frameworks of African American social groups and families, and the interactive roles of women. ... Read more

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An inovative collection of essays addressing the problematic of slavery in British and American literary, cultural and political writings, from Aphra Behn to Toni Morrison. ... Read more