SOURCE: “The Emerging Self: Young-adult and Classic Novels of the Black Experience,” in English Journal, Vol. 82, September, 1993, p. 50.

In the following excerpt from an essay on Petry, Nella Larsen, and Zora Neale Hurston, Gebhard recommends The Street to high school readers who want to understand the search for black cultural identity.

Three classic African American novels—Ann Petry's The Street, Nella Larsen's Quicksand, and Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, all eminently suitable for teaching in high school—explore the theme of cultural identity. How do young African American protagonists define themselves in relation to the values of a mainstream, frequently hostile society? A number of young-adult novels, a genre traditionally concerned with definition of self, have also explored the experiences of young African Americans as they seek to establish identities consonant with their cultural ideals.

During the last two decades, fiction written for young adults...