Powerful prose, poetry, and jazz riffs chronicle the first 21 years of the life of Haki R. Madhubuti, formerly Don L. Lee: poet, publisher, editor, and activist. He was raised by his mother Maxine, whose life is also recounted--including gritty details of how she used her body to feed, house, and shelter her children without help from their absentee father. Despite the obstacles in his childhood, music and literature molded the young Don Lee, effectively saving his life.

It is the story of a baby—me—during my first fourteen months, leading up to the birth of David. It’s told from the perspective and in the voice of a baby. Each of this small book’s 101 chapters is imagined. Yet, each is rooted in reality, in facts and feelings.

The daughter of Oliver Golden, an African American expatriate and agrarian activist of the early 1900's, and Bertha Bialek, youngest daughter of Polish American emigres of Jewish descent, Lily Golden has a special place in history. In this account of her experience, Golden provides a connection between the contemporary and historical relationships of America to Russia. Golden offers a distinctly different and refreshing point of view of the lives and experiences of Russia in her often alluring and romantic, sometimes bitterly painful, yet always vivid and intimate details of her life as a dark-skinned Russian surviving in and struggling against turbulent changes. She brings her tale of a sometimes charmed sometimes challenged existence full circle in her descriptions of her ultimate contact with distant relatives in the United States. Lily Golden allows the reader access into her lifelong revelation that family and community ties are boundless by time and geography.

Dr. Lewis gives instructions on how to teach by recounting some of her personal experiences in brief and pointed paragraphs.