Benbrook Public Library

Pecola Breedlove, a young eleven-year-old black girl, prays every day for beauty. Mocked by other children for the dark skin, curly hair, and brown eyes that set her apart, she yearns for the blond hair and blue eyes that she believes will allow her to finally fit in. Yet as her dreams grow more fervent, her life slowly starts to disintegrate in the face of adversity and strife. A powerful examination of our obsession with beauty and conformity.--from...

Their Eyes Were Watching God, an American classic, is a luminous and haunting novel about Janie Crawford, a Southern black woman in the 1930s whose journey from a free-spirited girl to a woman of independence and substance has inspired writers and readers for close to seventy years. This poetic, graceful love story, rooted in black folk traditions and steeped in mythic realism, celebrates, boldly and brilliantly, African-American culture and heritage....

Jude was seven years old when her parents were murdered and she and her two sisters were stolen away to live in the treacherous High Court of Faerie. Ten years later, Jude wants to belong there, despite her mortality. But many of the fey despise humans. Especially Prince Cardan, the youngest and wickedest son of the High King. To win a place at the Court, she must defy him--and face the consequences. As Jude becomes more deeply embroiled in palace...

"Glory Edim launches her Well-Read Black Girl Library with this vital anthology celebrating stories from such luminaries as Toni Morrison and Alice Walker. Since founding the Well-Read Black Girl Book Club in 2015, Glory Edim's profile has skyrocketed. From her roots in a Brooklyn-based community to a massive online following, she has been heralded as the literary tastemaker for a new generation. With On Girlhood, Edim has beautifully curated a canonical...

In a snow-cloaked kingdom where witches are burned, two enchantresses secretly compete for the heart of a prince, only to discover that they might be falling for each other. It's Karnawał season in the snow-cloaked Kingdom of Lechija, and from now until midnight when the church bells ring an end to Devil's Tuesday, time will be marked with wintry balls, glittery disguises, and cavalcades of nightly torch-lit kuligi sleigh-parties. Unbeknownst to...

A New York lawyer remembers his boyhood in Nebraska and his friendship with a pioneer Bohemian girl. A novel set in Nebraska about pioneering Bohemian farmers & of the courageous heroine, Antonia. First published in 1918. In Willa Cather's own estimation, My Antonia, first published in 1918, was "the best thing I've ever done." An enduring paperback bestseller on Houghton Mifflin's literary list, this hauntingly eloquent classic now boasts a new foreword...

"Wizard West was dead for nearly an entire day before he noticed. And Faye, the daughter of West's groundskeeper, is charged with the unfortunate task of informing the wizard that he is now a ghost who has lost all magical powers. (But not before West tries turning her into a cat!) To make matters worse, the enchanted castle of Celurdur, the only home that Fay has ever known, will fall apart at the next new moon if its foundation spells can't be renewed....

The disappearance forty years ago of Harriet Vanger, a young scion of one of the wealthiest families in Sweden, gnaws at her octogenarian uncle, Henrik Vanger. He is determined to know the truth about what he believes was her murder. He hires crusading journalist Mikael Blomkvist, recently at the wrong end of a libel case, to get to the bottom of Harriet's disappearance. Lisbeth Salander, a twenty-four-year-old, pierced, tattooed genius hacker, possessed...

Publisher Annotation: San Francisco, 1947. Bartender Sammy "Two Toes" Tiffin and the rest of the Cookie's Coffee Irregulars-a ragtag bunch of working mugs last seen in Noir-are on the hustle: they're trying to open a driving school for Chinatown residents; shanghai an abusive Swedish stevedore; get Mable, the local madam, and her girls to a Christmas party at the State Hospital without alerting the overzealous head of the S.F.P.D. vice squad; all...

"When Sarah Taylor arrives at the exclusive St. Ambrose School, she's carrying more baggage than just what fits in her suitcase. She knows she's not like the other girls-if the shabby, all-black, non-designer clothes don't give that away, the bottle of lithium hidden in her desk drawer sure does. St. Ambrose's queen bee, Greta Stanhope, picks Sarah as a target from day one-the most popular, powerful, horrible girl at school is relentless in making...