March 2019

March’s Author of the Month is… Michelle Obama!

A mini biography by Hannah Amos

Michelle Obama was born on January 17, 1964, in Chicago, Illinois. Michelle was in gifted programs by the time she reached 6th grade. She attended Princeton University, following in her brother's footsteps. She received her B.A. in Sociology in 1985, then went on to study law at Harvard Law School, where she got her J.D. in 1988.

Michelle started working as an associate in the Chicago branch of Sidley Austin where she specialized in marketing and intellectual property. It was 1989 when she met Barack Obama, a then summer intern to which she was his assigned adviser. A few years later they got married. They would later have their two daughters, Malia and Sasha, in 1998 and 2001 respectively.

Michelle had a long history of public service after leaving her law firm, including: working as an assistant to Mayor Richard Daley, assistant commissioner of planning and development for the City of Chicago, executive director for the Chicago office of public allies, associate dean of students services at the University of Chicago, and more.

During Barack Obama’s presidency, Michelle voiced that she wanted more support for military families. She also supported the organic-food movement: in 2012 she announced the “Let’s Move” initiative, a fitness program for kids and, that same year, she released her book American Grown: The Story of the White House Kitchen Garden and Gardens Across America, which explores her experience in creating her own vegetable garden and the works of community gardens.

On November 13, 2018, Michelle released her memoir Becoming. As expected, the book delves into her roots, career, and family life. Isabel Wilkerson from The New York Times wrote the following review:

“Becoming is refined and forthright, gracefully written and at times laugh-out-loud funny, with a humbler tone and less name-dropping than might be expected of one who is on chatting terms with the queen of England. One of Obama’s strengths is her ability to look back not from the high perch of celebrity or with the inevitability of hindsight but with the anxieties of the uncertain. She writes in the moment, as she saw and felt and discovered — as events were occurring.”