Growing Up

In Russell Baker’s autobiography, Growing Up, he vividly and humorously describes his life from his early childhood in the backwoods mountains of West Virginia, through the years in the Great Depression when his youth became greatly shaped. Reading Baker’s book allows us to get a big picture of the effects of WWII on his life as well as the impact of the New Deal on his family. In his efforts to describe his life he introduced many important family members and provided a pure understanding of their way of life during those important years in America’s history.
Baker foreshadows himself sitting at his mother’s bedside at the beginning of the book. She could not even remember her son due to her old age and lack of memory. She still thought that he was a young boy. Baker continued to describe his life from his early childhood in the backwoods mountains of West Virginia in the proceeding chapters. We first meet his mom, Lucy Elizabeth, at a young age. We learn how she ...