Unafraid of the Dark: A Memoir

In her deeply affecting, vividly written memoir, Rosemary L. Bray describes with remarkable frankness growing up poor in Chicago in the 1960s, and her childhood shaped by welfare, the Roman Catholic Church, and the civil rights movement.

Bray writes poignantly of her lasting dread of the cold and the dark that characterized her years of poverty; of her mother's extraordinary strength and resourcefulness; and of the system that miraculously enabled her mother to scrape together enough to keep the children fed and clothed. Bray's parents, held together by their ambitions for their children and painfully divided by their poverty, punctuate young Rosemary's nights with their violent fights and define her days with their struggles.

This powerful, ultimately inspiring book is a moving testimony of the history Bray overcame, and the racial obstacles she continues to see in her children's way.

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
Published: 03/16/1999
ISBN: 9780385494755
Pages: 304
Weight: 0.50lbs
Size: 7.84h x 5.28w x 0.58d
Award: Virginia Readers Choice Award - Nominee

Review Citations: Booklist 02/15/2000 pg. 1097
Black Issues Book Review 07/01/2005 pg. 51

Accelerated Reader Quiz #/Name: 36593 / Unafraid of the Dark
Reading Level: 7.3 / Interest Level: Upper Grade / Point Value: 18