Russell Baker's Pulitzer Prize-winning autobiography about growing up
in America during the Great Depression.
"Magical....He has taken such raw, potentially wrenching material and
made of it a story so warm, so likable, and so disarmingly funny...a
work of original biographical art."--The New York Times
In this heartfelt memoir, groundbreaking Pulitzer-winning New York
Times columnist Russell Baker traces his youth from the backwoods
mountains of Virginia to a New Jersey commuter town to the
Depression-shadowed landscape of Baltimore.
His is a story of adversity and courage, the poignancy of love and the
awkwardness of sex, of family bonds and family tensions. We meet the
people who influenced Baker's early life: his strong and loving mother,
his bold little sister Doris, the awesome matriarch Ida Rebecca and her
twelve sons. Here, too, are schoolyard bullies, great teachers, and the
everyday heroes and heroines of the Depression who faced disaster with
good cheer as they tried to muddle through.
A modern day classic filled with perfect turns of phrase and traces of
quiet wisdom, Growing Up is a coming of age story that is "the stuff
of American legend" (The Washington Post Book World).