The "Trailblazers of the Modern World" series brings readers another in-depth look at the challenges and life of someone who has made a great contribution to the world. Born in the fifties in central Mississippi, Oprah was taught by her grandmother to read by age three. Her parents never married and her mother left her with her grandmother when she was just four years old. Although her grandmother took care of her, Oprah received more whippings (now known as physical abuse) than hugs. Food, being plentiful, became a substitute for love. When she was six, Oprah went to live in a single-parent home in poverty with her mother in Wisconsin. Eight years later she moved again, only this time to Tennessee to live with her father. Following her graduation from high school, Oprah was named Miss Black Tennessee and became the first African-American anchor in Nashville, a job she held for three years while she completed college. In 1985, A.M. Chicago was renamed the Oprah Winfrey Show for which she has received thirty-four Emmys. Oprah uses her popularity to encourage others to take social action. In 1997 she formed the Oprah's Angel Network, which has helped to build schools, homes and fund college scholarships. In 2002 she won the first Bob Hope Humanitarian Award. As talk show host and humanitarian, Oprah has appeared in several movies and in 2000 introduced her own magazine. A timeline, glossary, index, and bibliography including Web sites are also included. 2003, World Almanac Library,