Oprah Winfrey

Children's Literature - Joyce Rice

Oprah Winfrey is a well-known personality today for her support of charitable causes and her success as a TV personality, but life for Oprah Winfrey was not always glamorous. Ms. Winfrey was born in Mississippi in 1954, a time in American history when racial tensions were high and African Americans were not valued in the same way as white Americans. Ms. Winfrey was raised by her grandparents while her mother traveled to Wisconsin to try to earn the money she needed to live. Although in the 1950s, education among African Americans was very poorly funded, Oprah's grandmother valued education and made sure that her granddaughter learned to read and write. When Oprah's grandmother became ill and unable to care for her, Oprah was sent to live with her mother in Wisconsin, but by age fourteen she was living with her father and his wife in Nashville. Oprah developed a love of reading from those early times with her grandmother. When her environment was less comforting that she desired, she would escape into a book. This volume introduces us to the TV personality and shows the reader that living the life of your dreams can be a great adventure. The appendices include a timeline, recommended books and websites, and an index. This is a good first biography for the upper elementary media collection. It is part of the "African-American Heroes" series.