Books

Haki R. Madhubuti came from a home that did not seem to be a breeding ground for success. His mother had a cleaning job that required her to sleep with the building owner. Later, she became a drunkard and then an addict to hard drugs and finally a prostitute to pay for the hard drugs. Mr. Madhubuti says about growing up, "Poetry in my home was almost as strange as money." He avoided any bad effects of his upbringing because his mother sent him to the library to borrow and read "Black Boy," a novel by Richard Wright. At first, he resisted, because he didn't want to go up to a white librarian and request any book with the word "black" in the title. However, when he realized how important the book was to his mother, he borrowed the book and read it to please her. That book got him hooked on reading, and he became a prominent African-American poet.

In Holland, Miep and Jan Gies hid Jews from the Nazis. To get the food necessary to feed so many people, they made many trips to different stores, where they purchased small amounts of food because they were afraid to draw attention to themselves by purchasing a large amount of food all at once. However, a grocer saw how much food they were buying, so he began to give them extra vegetables. Later, they discovered why the grocer was so helpful to them. He also was hiding Jews, and unfortunately, he was caught and arrested. The Jews that Miep and Jan Gies were hiding were also discovered and taken away to concentration camps only Otto Frank survived. Miep and Jan Gies gave him his daughter Anne's diary, which they had saved. He had it published, and "The Diary of Anne Frank" became an international best seller.

Harry Houdini performed many of his escapes behind a screen. He would escape from a seemingly diabolical device in a few minutes, then remain behind the screen and read a book as the members of the audience grew more and more worried about his safety. When the members of the audience started to shout for someone to rescue him, Houdini would emerge from behind the screen, pretending to be exhausted, as if he had been struggling to escape the whole time.

Isaac Asimov became a science fiction fan early in his life, and after receiving his first library card he used to walk home from the library carrying three science fiction books. He would carry one book under his right arm, and a second book under his left arm. The third book he would hold open in both hands, so he could read it as he walked. Later, he wrote such science fiction books as "I, Robot," and in his lifetime he published more than 500 books!

The parents of Marian Wright Edelman were serious about raising their children correctly. If one of their children wasn't busy, they would assign the child a chore to do. However, if the child was reading, they would let the child read. Ms. Edelman says that she and her siblings read a lot. In 1973, Ms. Edelman founded the Children's Defense Fund, which lobbies politicians to pass legislation to help children.

When W. E. B. Du Bois was a young man in the late 19th century, he came across a 5-volume edition of Thomas Macaulay's "History of England" and decided that he had to have it. The edition was expensive, and he didn't have much money, but he paid the bookseller 25 cents a week toward the books, and after many months, he was able to take possession of them.

"Such Sweet Compulsion," Geraldine Farrar's autobiography, begins, "I died in the beginning of the year 1923." No, Ms. Farrar did not die then, either emotionally or physically. Her mother died then, and Ms. Farrar wrote her autobiography using both her own voice and that of her mother, whom she believed had gone on to a higher plane of existence.

When Marguerite Johnson was a young girl, a woman named Mrs. Bertha Flowers took her to the library and told her to read all the books from A to Z. Young Marguerite did. Later, she changed her name to Maya Angelou and became the acclaimed author of the autobiography "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings."

Comedian Bob Newhart is in many ways a modest man. When he heard that Jeff Sorensen was writing a biography of him, Mr. Newhart asked, "Why would anybody want to do a book about me? It would have to be about eight pages long." (Actually, the biography turned out to be about 180 pages long.)

When astronomer Carl Sagan was a boy, he went to the library and asked for a book about stars the librarian handed him a book about movie stars. After he had explained what he wanted in more detail, the librarian showed him the library section devoted to astronomy.

Children's author Judy Blume loved books even when she was a little girl. In fact, she loved the picture book "Madeline" so much that after borrowing it, she didn't want to return it. Instead, she hid the book and then told her mother that she had lost it.

When Marilyn Monroe started making money as an actress, she did what most people would do open a charge account at a store. But whereas most people would open their first charge account at a clothing store, she opened her first one at a bookstore.

In 1995, Chicago Bulls professional basketball player Scottie Pippen sponsored a reading contest for over 80 children. He treated the 33 winners to a pizza party and to tickets to a Chicago Bulls game. In addition, he signed the children's favorite books.

The great Muslim mathematician Al-Khwarizmi (780-850 C.E.) wrote a book titled "Al-jabr wa-al-muqabala" (translation: "Completing and Balancing"). We get our word "algebra" from the first word of the title of this book.

Figure skater Dorothy Hamill's autobiography, "On and Off the Ice," contains some photographs her parents took of her when she was a baby and when she was a very young girl. The photographs are labeled, "Early publicity shots."