In 1979, New York Times reporter and commentator Russell Baker won the Pulitzer Prize for his “Observer” column; three years later he won another for this autobiographical book. As the title suggests, Growing Up focuses on his childhood, Depression-era years spent in Virginia, New Jersey, and Baltimore under the watchful influence of his mother (his alcoholic father died when Baker was five). Lucy Elizabeth was “a formidable woman. Determined to speak her mind, determined to have her way, determined to bend those who opposed her.” As much as this is a book about the author growing up, it is also a book about Lucy growing old, and the son frames the bulk of the chapters— vibrantly drawn, good-humored scenes of hard times, adventures with the extended family of aunts and uncles, boyhood and adolescent antics, and eventual graduation to college and the military—with affecting portrayals of his aged mother adrift in senility. In his apprenticeship as a newspaper reporter, Baker learned how to find a story and tell it; in his heyday as a satirist, he perfected the ability to illuminate the private and public vanities of the tumultuous times in which he lived; as a memoirist, he added a new dimension to his already considerable skill set. It’s best called wisdom, and it makes this generous remembrance of things past a delight from start to finish.