N4L 016: "Life Is So Good" by George Dawson & Richard Glaubman

Life Is So Good is the unlikely memoir of a slave’s grandson who finally learned to read at age 98. Given the chance to get a formal education, George Dawson took to school the way he did every other experience—with humility and gratitude.

Co-author Richard Glaubman originally intended to give voice to a man relegated to a life of discrimination and prejudice. Instead, he found a man filled with gratitude and a sunny disposition. Even with a front-row seat to the cruelty and severe poverty of Blacks in the Deep South, Dawson remained untainted by bitterness.

Eventually, Dawson and Glaubman published the story bearing the title, Life Is So Good. These four words became Dawson’s lifelong mantra when his father spoke them soon after the two of them witnessed a lynching. Having seen a century’s worth of life’s ups and downs, Dawson reminds us, “People forget that a picture ain’t made from just one color. Life ain’t all good or all bad. It’s full of everything.”

Soon after the book was released, Dawson passed away at age 103. Yet his pearls of wisdom are timeless. Here are just three:

1. “Some people are growing children [like farmers grow hogs], not raising children.”
2. “[Don’t] worry so much” and “Be happy for what you have.”
3. “The world only changes one person at a time."

BUY Life Is So Good

Also by Richard Glaubman:

More Than a Book a Story of Friendship

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