I first read this book as a teenage having picked it up from the church library. (I'm sure someone probably purchased that book based entirely on the title). I may have forgotten many of the details but I always knew this book had a huge effect on me. I was a naive, white, farm girl in the early 60's reading about an impoverished, street-smart, black girl in Philadelphia in the early 1900's. We might as well have been on different planets. Reading this over fifty years later, it still has a profound effect. I believe some of my feelings about race, social issues, and poverty were rooted in this book.

Telling the story of the black entertainment business during the 1930's and 40's is interesting, but that is not the reason I love this book. I never heard or saw Ethel Waters on television or in the movies. It is her story of faith that makes this book timeless. Her honest searching, questioning, and the maintaining of her faith throughout her amazing life is the real theme of this biography. Her life was sordid; she had no childhood; she lived in a time when she was a second-class citizen from the time of her birth to a thirteen year old girl as a result of rape. Yet, she flourished. "It began to dawn on me that if sordidness left a deep and lasting mark, so could goodness in life." I love Ethel Waters, and I love this book, and I love the fact that I was able to read it as a teenager and then read it again as a senior citizen and still be profoundly moved by her story. ( )