Dreams from My Father facts for kids

Quick facts for kids
Dreams from My Father

Author	Barack Obama
Country	United States
Language	English
Subject	Early life of Barack Obama
Genre	Memoir
Publisher	Times Books (1995) Three Rivers Press (2004)
Publication date	July 18, 1995 August 10, 2004
Media type	Book
Pages	403 (1995) 442 (2004)
ISBN	1-4000-8277-3
Dewey Decimal	973/.0405967625009/0092 B 22
LC Class	E185.97.O23 A3 2004

Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (1995) is a memoir by Barack Obama that explores the events of his early years in Honolulu and Chicago until his entry into Harvard Law School in 1988. Obama originally published his memoir in 1995, when he was starting his political campaign for the Illinois Senate.

After Obama won the U.S. Senate Democratic primary victory in Illinois in 2004, the book was re-published that year. He gave the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention (DNC) and won the US Senate seat in the fall. Obama launched his presidential campaign three years later. The 2004 edition includes a new preface by Obama and his DNC keynote address.

According to The New York Times, Obama modeled Dreams from My Father on Ralph Ellison's novel Invisible Man. The book, frequently praised for its literary qualities, has also been criticized for inaccuracies and over-use of artistic license. Obama acknowledges using composite characterizations and adjusted timelines in the book's introduction, writing that the "hazards" of autobiography could not be fully avoided.

Narrative

Childhood

Barack Obama recounts how his parents met and his own life until his enrollment at Harvard Law School in 1988. His parents were Barack Obama Sr. of Kenya, and Ann Dunham of Wichita, Kansas, who had met while they were students at the University of Hawaii. In the first chapter, speaking of his father and namesake, Obama states "[h]e had left Hawaii back in 1963, when I was only two years old." Obama's parents separated in 1963 and divorced in 1964, when he was two years old. The elder Obama later went to Harvard to pursue his PhD in economics. After that, he returned to Kenya to fulfill the promise to his nation. Obama himself formed an image of his absent father from stories told by his mother and maternal grandparents. He saw his father one more time, in 1971, when Obama Sr. came to Hawaii for a month's visit. The elder Obama, who had remarried, died in a car accident in Kenya in 1982.

After her divorce, Ann Dunham married Lolo Soetoro, a Javanese surveyor from Indonesia who was also a graduate student in Hawaii. The family moved to Jakarta when Obama was six years old. At age ten, Obama returned to Hawaii under the care of his maternal grandparents for the better educational opportunities available there. He was enrolled in the fifth grade at Punahou School, a private college-preparatory school, where he was one of six black students. Obama attended Punahou from the fifth grade until his graduation in 1979. Obama writes in his book: "For my grandparents, my admission into Punahou Academy heralded the start of something grand, an elevation in the family status that they took great pains to let everyone know." There, he met Ray (Keith Kakugawa), who was two years older and also multi-racial. He introduced Obama to the African-American community.

Adulthood

Upon graduating from high school, Obama moved to the contiguous United States for studies at Occidental College. He describes having lived a "party" lifestyle. After two years at Occidental, Obama transferred to Columbia College at Columbia University, where he majored in Political Science. After graduation, Obama worked for a year in business. He moved to Chicago, where he worked for a non-profit as a community organizer in the Altgeld Gardens housing project on the city's mostly black South Side. Obama recounts the difficulty of the experience, as his program faced resistance from entrenched community leaders and apathy on the part of the established bureaucracy. During this period, Obama first visited Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ, which became the center of his religious life. Before attending Harvard, Obama decided to visit relatives in Kenya for the first time in his life. He recounts part of this experience in the final and emotional part of the book. Obama acknowledged his entire memoir to reflect on his personal experiences with race relations in the United States.

People in the book

With the exception of family members and a handful of public figures, Barack Obama says in the 2004 preface that he had changed names of others to protect their privacy. He also created composite characters to expedite the narrative flow. Some of his acquaintances have recognized themselves and acknowledged their names. Various researchers have suggested the names of other figures in the book:

Versions

• New York: Times Books; 1st edition (July 18, 1995); Hardcover: 403 pages; ISBN: 0-8129-2343-X
• New York: Kodansha International (August 1996); Paperback: 403 pages; ISBN: 1-56836-162-9
• New York: Three Rivers Press; Reprint edition (August 10, 2004); Paperback: 480 pages; ISBN: 1-4000-8277-3
• New York: Random House Audio; Abridged edition (May 3, 2005); Audio CD; ISBN: 0-7393-2100-5; Includes the senator's speech from the 2004 Democratic National Convention.
• New York: Random House Audio; Abridged edition on Playaway digital audio player
• New York: Random House Large Print; 1st Large print edition (April 4, 2006); Hardcover: 720 pages; ISBN: 0-7393-2576-0
• New York: Crown Publishers (January 9, 2007); Hardcover: 464 pages; ISBN: 0-307-38341-5
• New York: Random House (January 9, 2007); eBook; ISBN: 0-307-39412-3
• Melbourne: Text Publishing (2008); Paperback: 442 pages; ISBN: 978-1-921351-43-3