Growing Up

By: Russell Baker

Narrated by: Corey M. Snow

In this heartfelt memoir by the Masterpiece Theatre host, Pulitzer Prize winner, and groundbreaking New York Times columnist, Russell Baker traces his youth in the mountains of rural Virginia. When Baker was only five, his father died. His mother, strong-willed and matriarchal, never looked back. After all, she had three children to raise.

These were Depression years, and Mrs. Baker moved her fledgling family to Baltimore. Baker's mother was determined her children would succeed, and we know her regimen worked for Russell. He did everything from delivering papers to hustling subscriptions for the Saturday Evening Post. As is often the case, early hardships made the man.

©1982 Russell Baker (P)2017 Tantor

Well done Corey Snow…..

……….and it goes without saying Mr. Russell Baker cracked this memoir of sorts out of the park! A fantastic story that I wish kept on going. A great coming of age tale. I felt such a kinship with the author in the way he remembered so much of his childhood. A great blueprint to look at if I ever finally start my own memoir someday. Just captures life in the honest lens it goes by in. Hard at times, impossible at others, on top of the world sometimes, falling in love…..but all the while there’s always that “home” back there in our rearviewmirror and the story of how we made it to where we are today. The sacrifices that the people we have in our lives made for us. As we age we see things much clearer now. When it’s too late sometimes. Time is a cruel thing. If you don’t call your mother after reading this one then you had better go back to playing video games or something. I loved this book.

Wonderful biography of a great newspaperman

A great story that portrays life for so many of my parents generation. A reminder of wonderful can be even with its trials and tribulations. Not surprising it won a Pulitzer prize!

Good not great

This story was fine. It provided a different-ish look into a specific period of our country's past. The audio narration was good but the written "narrator" came off a bit arrogant and frustrating at times. good enough as a story, but not sure I would recommend it. take it or leave it.

Authentic and Heart Warming

Russell Baker’s Growing Up provides a charming and thoughtful story of his life up until marriage. It gives a powerful view of what it was like growing up during the depression and World War II. I was surprised at the end that I found myself in tears at the beauty and simplicity of this epic work, it is so human. It deserved the Pulitzer Prize.

Lovely book

Sorry it ended such a well written and organized book. The story was told beautifully. I Loved it.