Story of Life Russel Baker

Mileena

Mrs. Parenti

English9AD

4 November 2010

Growing Up

Growing Up is a biography written by Russel Baker. He tells the story of his life and what it was like to live through the Great Depression. His story shows self confidence and motivation. It's focused on himself and how he made it through poverty and ended up with a great life. This book keeps the reader riveted with its historical events, suspenseful situations, and positive tone.

This book was mainly focused on the Great Depression, and it was written well. That's no surprise because the author had experiences with it, himself. He described how he felt about dealing with the Depression, and it was very clear what his thoughts were and how he felt embarrassed. He was especially embarrassed when his mother took him to collect food that was government handouts. "What worried me the most as we neared home was the possibility we'd be seen with the incriminating food by someone we knew" (Baker 201). It wasn't only embarrassment he felt, but he also felt like a failure at life. Well, he had no reason to worry, his future held great things for him. But he had to work his way up there, just like everybody else.

Russel Baker explodes the moments in suspenseful situations. The suspense was focused on how he delivered newspapers late at night. He read about a lot of murders that went on in Baltimore. There was a serial killer running loose in Baltimore. One night when he was delivering newspapers, he came across a strange man. The man started to follow him, and Russel escaped by entering his house and locking the door. Danger was only one of the flaws about selling papers. He also dealt with rude customers, customers that never paid what they owed, and drunks pondering the streets. Despite those flaws, he knew the job had to be done. So he continued to sell papers. That was the first step on his journey to success.

He talks about his education in his story, and the ups and down of high school and college. At first he didn't plan on going to college because he knew it was expensive. Then one of his good friends told him to apply for a scholarship. Russel Baker applied for the John Hopkins scholarship. He had to take a test, and whoever scored the highest, got the scholarship. He studied and gave his best. "It seemed that this college , of whose existence I had just learned, was willing to accept a limited number of students absolutely free if they could do well on the competitive examination"(Baker 324). He got a letter from john Hopkins and discovered that he was the lucky young man who got the scholarship.

This book kept me turning the pages with each moment of suspense, hope, and historical event. I never knew how hard it