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).
WINNER Pulitzer Prize (Biography)
Praise for Growing Up and Russell Baker
“A wondrous book, funny, sad, and strong…[with scenes] as funny and touching as Mark Twain's.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review
“Lovely haunting prose....[Baker] moves beyond the boundaries of his newspaper column to establish a place for this book among the most enduring recollections of American boyhoods—those of Thurber and Mencken, Aldrich and Twain.”—The Washington Post Book World
“One of the most heart-warming, inspiring, nostalgic, funniest, best-written books I have ever read.”—Ann Landers
"[Baker is] a precious national resource."—Neil Postman
“The saddest, funniest, most tragical yet comical picture of coming of age in the U.S.A. in the Depression years and World War II that has ever been written.”—Harrison Salisbury
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).
Awards
WINNER Pulitzer Prize (Biography)
Praise
Praise for Growing Up and Russell Baker
“A wondrous book, funny, sad, and strong…[with scenes] as funny and touching as Mark Twain's.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review
“Lovely haunting prose....[Baker] moves beyond the boundaries of his newspaper column to establish a place for this book among the most enduring recollections of American boyhoods—those of Thurber and Mencken, Aldrich and Twain.”—The Washington Post Book World
“One of the most heart-warming, inspiring, nostalgic, funniest, best-written books I have ever read.”—Ann Landers
"[Baker is] a precious national resource."—Neil Postman
“The saddest, funniest, most tragical yet comical picture of coming of age in the U.S.A. in the Depression years and World War II that has ever been written.”—Harrison Salisbury
