#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Michelle Obama’s worldwide bestselling memoir Becoming is now
adapted for young readers. Michelle Robinson was born on the South Side of Chicago. From her
modest beginnings she would become Michelle Obama the inspiring and powerful First Lady of
the United States when her husband Barack Obama was elected the forty-fourth president. They
would be the first Black First Family in the White House and serve the country for two terms.
Growing up Michelle and her older brother Craig shared a bedroom in their family’s upstairs
apartment in her great-aunt’s house. Her parents Fraser and Marian poured their love and
energy into their children. Michelle’s beloved dad taught his kids to work hard keep their
word and remember to laugh. Her mom showed them how to think for themselves use their voice
and be unafraid. But life soon took her far from home. With determination carefully made plans
and the desire to achieve Michelle was eager to expand the sphere of her life from her
schooling in Chicago. She went to Princeton University where she learned what it felt like to
be the only Black woman in the room. She then went to Harvard Law School and after graduating
returned to Chicago and became a high-powered lawyer. Her plans changed however when she met
and fell in love with Barack Obama. From her early years of marriage and the struggle to
balance being a working woman a wife and the mom of two daughters Michelle Obama details the
shift she made to political life and what her family endured as a result of her husband’s
fast-moving political career and campaign for the presidency. She shares the glamour of ball
gowns and world travel and the difficulties of comforting families after tragedies. She
managed to be there for her daughters’ swim competitions and attend plays at their schools
without catching the spotlight while defining and championing numerous initiatives especially
those geared toward kids during her time as First Lady. Most important this volume for young
people is an honest and fascinating account of Michelle Obama’s life led by example. She shares
her views on how all young people can help themselves as well as help others no matter their
status in life. She asks readers to realize that no one is perfect and that the process of
becoming is what matters as finding yourself is ever evolving. In telling her story with
boldness she asks young readers: Who are you and what do you want to become?
