Augusta Braxton Baker, an African-American librarian, storyteller, and activist, was born on April 1, 1911, in Baltimore, Maryland. Her school-teacher parents put strong emphasis on the importance of education and the joys of reading, and after high school graduation, Baker began attending the University of Pittsburgh in 1927. At the end of her sophomore year, she married fellow student James Baker, and together they moved to Albany, New York. She attended New York State Teacher's College, from which she earned a B.A. in education (1933) and a B.S. in library science (1934). Soon afterwards, the couple moved to New York City, where Baker worked briefly as a teacher, and her son, James Henry Baker III, was born.

In 1937, Baker was hired by Anne Carroll Moore, formidable supervisor of youth services for the New York Public Library, to be a children's librarian at what was then...