Parents' Guide to

Becoming: Adapted for Young Readers

By Lucinda Dyer, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 10+

Candid and inspiring memoir from a former First Lady.

Book Michelle Obama Autobiography 2021
Becoming: Adapted for Young Readers Poster Image

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What you will—and won't—find in this book.

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What's the Story?

In Becoming, Michelle Obama takes readers from her childhood in Chicago all the way to her last days in the White House. Michelle Robinson grew up in a working class neighborhood sharing a room with her older brother, Craig. Her father worked tending a boiler (even after he became disabled with MS) and both her parents empowered their children to dream big dreams. A gifted student, she followed her brother to Princeton, which was very White and very male. After Harvard Law School, she went home to Chicago and a job at a "fancy" law firm, where she was asked to mentor a summer intern named Barack Obama. She would leave the law firm for a job at City Hall and then one with a startup that trained and mentored young people. The Obamas began married life in the apartment she grew up in, had two daughters, and started what Michelle Obama thought would be a life in Chicago surrounded by family and friends. That, of course, was not what the future held. There would be campaigns for state senator, U.S. senator, and finally for president. The chapters on life in the White House focus on family rather than politics. She shares lots of stories about what the family did to make life as normal as possible while being accompanied everywhere by the Secret Service (nightly family dinners, sleepovers and parties for Sasha and Malia's friends, shopping incognito at Target, making certain they were at school basketball games and swim meets, arranging driving lessons for Malia). Obama ends her story looking forward, writing that "becoming is never giving up on the idea that there's more growing to be done."

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say Not yet rated
Kids say (4):

This memoir is written in such a warm and easy style that readers will feel as if they're curled up on a couch with Michelle Obama as she talks about her life. While Becoming has a fair share of chapters about politics, most of her story is easily relatable to young readers -- struggling to fit in at school, being underestimated by a teacher, having a family member who's ill, breaking up with a boyfriend, and what it's like to be a kid in the White House (the Secret Service coming along when you hang out with friends, go shopping, or go to prom).

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about what they learned from Becoming about using your school years as a time to "define yourself." How have you changed over the past two years? How would you define yourself today?

  • How different would your daily life be if you were followed everywhere by bodyguards?

  • What would you like to become? Would it be just one thing or do you have a long list of things you might like to be in life?

Book Details

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