Robinson obama. applause she is a lawyer. She is an author and she is the wife of the 44th president of the United States, barack obama. applause throughout her initiatives as first lady, she has become a role model for women and four girls. And an advocate for healthy families, Service Members and their families, Higher Education and international adolescent girls education. Her much anticipated memoir will be coming will be published in the u. S. And canada on november 13th, 2018 by crown, a division of Penguin Random house and it will be released simultaneously in 24 languages. Considered one of the most popular first ladies. applause mrs. Obama invites leaders into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her from her childhood on the south side of chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work to her time spent at the worlds most famous address. Warm, wise and revelatory, becoming is the deeply personal reckoning of a woman of soul and substance who has steadily defied expectations and whose story inspires us to do the same. We are also fortunate to have librarian of congress carla hagan hosting the conversation with mrs. Obama today. As you know, hagan was nominated to this position of librarian of congress by president barack obama in february, 2016 and her nomination was confirmed by the u. S. Senate in july, 2016, she was sworn in as the 14th librarian of congress in september, 2016. Librarian of congress, carla hayden, and first lady, mrs. Obama come together now for an indepth conversation around her forthcoming memoir, becoming, and the experience that have impacted her life, her family, and her country. Michelle obama. applause thank you so much. applause wow its a lot of librarians laughs a lot of librarians here. You guys looking good laughs hi, carla hi how are you . Oh, im telling you, there have been many thrills but to be the librarian and sitting here with you is one of the most, im getting a little but i have to you just have to remember our days back in city hall. I mean, ive known carla since i was a baby. A baby professional, so you shouldnt be nervous. And what a professional you were, though, because the Chicago Public library came back from pittsburgh and the library was part of your portfolio. Yes, it was. And it made such a difference to have somebody that. That was her. That was not shade she was making a point payment coming in from academic library. We go way back. So you reading is a big part of your family. Yes. Absolutely. We are readers, the obama we started reading to the girls when they were babies because as a little kid i love to read aloud i would set up the animals and the barbie means to them and show them the pictures. Im not that active reading aloud so my kids are my real baby like agreed to so i read to them all the time. All the time, i know every word of every dr. Seuss, anything still by heart. And as the girls grew up we continued to incorporate books as a form of Family Activity so as they got older we started reading more complex books together, so barack and malaria read all of the harry potter books allowed from front to cover, from the front to the back, and then she could see the movie after they read it. That was their father daughter ritual and i stayed out of that, because you know you want the father to have a thing that they do, so i dont know anything about harry potter because i wasnt even going to get involved in that so thats their thing, so when sasha got older i read life of pi with her and then we saw the movie, and we were big comic family readers. Really . So we love calvin and hubs. We were a big calvin and hobbies family. Reading was, it was a part of the way we put our kids to sleep at night, i felt that music, reading, culture was an important part of their development from very early on so we were big, big readers. One of the images that i know that when you are in the white house and it would be holiday time, you going and they would be going to bookstores. Oh, yeah. And giving books as gifts. Thats all barack does, thats the only place he knew how to go as president , he cut golf and he could go to the bookstore, i think those were the two things he felt comfortable doing outside of the white house but that was an annual ritual of heat and the girls to go to one of the bookstores for the holidays and in chicago the 57th street bookstore, you know that bookstore, that was our Neighborhood Store that we liked to go to, so yeah, bookstores and libraries of course were a big part of our life, big part of my life very early on. I remember my First Experience with going to the library, i was for, and it was like the First Official time i got an i. D. , you felt like a bigtime person getting something with your name on it and i remember going into the library in our neighborhood was three blocks from our house and my mom who was a housewife at the time, thats where she would take us and that was sort of my first major big girl thing i would do was get my library card and stand counter high watching them put me into the official files. I felt really important. I didnt know what to do with my librarian card because i didnt have a wallet or purse laughs but i felt really special just to have that. And we would go to the library, it was a Community Space as all of you all know, the library us like for all of you, you see its a major part of any community and that was the place for our family to go and get those early books, dick and jane books, babar the elephant, you go off into the childrens corner where the colorful titles were and one day i graduated to going upstairs where the books were darker and the jackets were maroon or blue, that was where the serious books were upstairs. Did you ever get to go . Oh, yeah. I got up there one day, i graduated. But then the library became work, research papers. The duo decimal system. See . Only here at the library what we get just a shout out for the dewey decimal system. I love you all. I do. So you continued, you went through school, graduate, school all of that and then your life got even busier and how did you find time to read just for pleasure, and you know we all want to know, did you get a chance to read anything for pleasure . Oh, yeah. There were moments of escape, today, however im spending most of my time selfishly focused on my book, so thats what im reading you all. Its almost ready. Its coming. Ive been immersed in that process so this year its been a little tougher for me personally because im trying to stay in my voice but when i do have time, one of my chief of staff, melissa who, by the way, shes more excited to be here than she was to meet bruce springsteen. I mean, Melissa Wintour is my book recommended. She loves you all and im a loser here in this Convention Center tonight, she might leave me. Shes been with me for the very beginning of the campaign but she is my book guru and i usually read what melissa tells me i should read so she will pass, on she will throw some books in my bag on a long trip. What have ive been reading . I have a very eclectic reading list, ive read commonwealth. I love a good story that takes me outside of myself. I love everything that zadie smith has done. White tee. I actually accidentally read that. I read it maybe two years ago and then i was like, it was on my shelf and i thought, have i read this . And i started reading it and i was thinking, i must have espn or something because i know whats going to happen on the next, page this is how my life is in these past decades i would forget what ive read, but ive read it and i realized by the third chapter that i read it already but i finished it because it was that good. I love her storytelling, her characters, just finished reading exit west which was very good, very powerful. The nightingale, i read just the other day. And he shout out for the nightingale . laughs chimamanda adiche, i love her stuff. I love stories, i love to escape for a moment, i needed that escape over the past ten years, i needed to get out of my own story, get into some but he else a story for a minute. And were you able to do that . Get lost in a book . I couldnt read in the white house at times, there would be just too much going on and we were running so fast that whenever i would get a chance to sit down and pick up a book i would maybe get a sentence and i would fall asleep, and literally sitting down, i dont know if i was snapping or passed out, i didnt tell the difference, it would be an hour and i thought, would i sleep . Thats how the white house years felt so usually on a longer trip i would get into a book but it was, you know, it was a hectic eight years. Now you said pick up a book. So that implies the physical book. Not ebooks. No, im not an easy reader, i like to have a book in my hand applause . Even in my riding process i like to hold it. I cant really edit things on the computer well. I like to write down mike shot thoughts. I can jump things on an iphone but thats hard, i have to feel, and i have to still be able to touch it. Im old, sorry. So we still have a lot of books in our house and my husband who, as you know, is an avid reader and still love books around, everywhere weve gone hes just boxes and boxes of books that i cant get rid of. He will not allow me to do it. We are still a household, we have books on shelves. Lots of books on shelves. You know as a librarian i did some research and i understand that theres a library, you actually worked in a Library Bindery . Oh yes, one summer, bob goldmans book bindery, it was the summit right before i went to college. I had a friends mother who worked there and it was my first real job. Before then i did the neighborhood jobs, babysitting. I had a family next to us that they pay me to do everything for them. Babysit, train the dog, trudeau piano. The smith, i loved them. They got me through my school. But then i graduated to a job downtown and the bindery was downtown and friends mother worked their. My job entailed doing one thing 1000 times every day all day over and over again so i got to put the little metal thing in a hole and then passed the cardboard over to the guy that would slim it down so my job was to take the medal thing, put it in the hole and pass it. And i was good with doing that for the first day, even. laughs i thought, you know, i was aiming at finishing. I thought there would be an end to it, thousands of them, and i would prove to the bindery people that i was so fast, that i could complete it and i would be done. And i just realized, its never over. They just kept coming. The little pieces of cardboard and the Little Things and that went on for weeks and weeks and weeks doing the same thing and i just thought, my god, im ready for college. I can do this. But it taught me Great Respect for the men and women who do that work every day. That thankless work that makes it possible for us to have books and folders and, you know, i learned work ethic at the bindery. The dozens of people in that plant who came there and they did the same job every day for years and years and years, you know . They reminded me of my father. Those bluecollar workers who didnt look for passion in their jobs. They didnt have the luxury like we did to think about doing the things that we love. They had to do things that put food on the table and that was my First Experience shoulder to shoulder with men and women who were making a living for their families. You mentioned your father so many times about his work ethic, and what it took for him to go to work and provide and things. You saw it firsthand. My father, frazier robinson, man, every value that i have in me came from my mother and father and watching them day today. As most people know my father was blue collar worker, worked the same job his entire life. Worked at the Water Filtration plant. And my father had ms and contracted it at the prime of his life so i never knew him to be able to walk without the assistance of a cane. But my father got up every day, it was a shift job, so some days he was on days, some days he was on nights, some days he was on evenings so his schedule changed and i remember him putting on his white tshirt, his blue button up uniform and getting his crutches and making it up the back door to the car to his job without complaint, without regret because he was proud that he had a job that allowed him to invest in his children, me and my brother, with that blue color salary he put two of us through college and princeton, at that. applause and he make sure that you know, we went to those schools long before they had those Financial Assistance that put you completely through. We will still pay, my parents had to pay a portion of our tuition and he made sure that our tuition was paid on time, we never going to be late and not be able to register for our classes. So who i am today, so much of it is because of my parents and that hard work ethic and the values of your word in your bond, you do what you say you are going to do. Trust is important. Honor, honesty. You know, i saw my father behaving that way every single day with everyone regardless of race or station in life so thats who i think about when i write my book and how i carry myself through the world, i do what i think marion and frazier would expect me to do. I hope to be that person for them. applause my mom is out here is your mom here . Oh yes, miss colleen. Hey hey mom sorry. So whenever anything happens she says, mrs. Robinson. She models after your mom, and how your mom handled all of that. Your mom was right there with you. Well, you know, grandma. We couldnt have made it through the white house without her. Just having her. She had been helping me long before coming to the white house because barack was always, you know, he was a state senator in the u. S. Senate and those were jobs that had him away from home usually most of the week and i still had a fulltime job, i was at any point in time i was a professional with a big job of my own and we had two little kids. You know, we could afford help and we had a couple of great babysitters but the time i lost that one good babysitter and that crushed me like nothing else, i mean, when she said she had to leave because she needed to make more money i thought i was losing an arm. Barack was trying to console me and i said, do, just get out of here, you are of no help to me. I need glo, i dont need you. You do nothing for me. laughs but i remember that pain and i thought, how can i go to work every day and not know that my kids are good . That there with somebody who loves them . Which is not to get on a soapbox which is why affordable childcare is so important because so many applause having access to that kind of security, for all the families out there who dont have a choice, they have to go to work, i know that pain of what it feels like when you dont know your kids are good. And good not just being safe but that they are in a place where somebody loves them and is going to instill values in them it is going to read to them and take them to the library and is not going to just plop them in front of the tv. I was about to quit working and i thought, i just cant do it. I cant keep up the balance. And who stepped in but my mom who was not yet retired but she would come over at the crack of dawn to allow me to go to the gym, she would start getting the kids ready for school, shed wake them, up fix breakfast, id come back, id grab them, id take them to school, shed go to work. Shed get off, shed come and pick them up, get them home, start dinner. By that time i get home. I mean, we had our team down and there is just something about having your mom in that place where you know she, she will kill someone for her grandchildren. So she was the grandmother at the pick up line, she was going to be the first one at the pick up line because she didnt want her little grand babies Walking Around wondering where their ride was. He would get there an hour before pick up to be the first car so that shed see her babies, bring them here, bring them here. You cant pay for that. So we brought that energy with us to the white house and we needed it, that kind of no nonsense solid tell it like it is, unimpressed with everything kind of personality that is Marion Robinson. You, know she did not want anybody doing her laundry at the white house. She could do her laundry just fine. Really . Oh, no. She was notorious for doing we had housekeepers and butlers and everything at the white house. She was like, dont touch my underwear. Ive got it. laughs im too old for that. My moms role model. And she taught the girls to do their laundry so they had laundry duty with grandma. So she really helped keep them grounded. Oh yeah she kept the whole white house grounded, and everybody used to go up to their room, the butlers, the staff, and they would just be chitchatting with her, shooting the breeze, getting some wisdom, telling their stories. She just had a whole little counseling session up there in her suite of rooms but she kept us humble and focused on what was important and she was my sounding board. Anytime anything crazy happened over the course of the day, the first thing i would do, her suite of rooms were on the third floor above us and id go there and id sit on her couch, shed have on msnbc or something and should be trying not to talk about what was on the news until i kind of let her know that i was ready to talk about it and she would do what she always, did sit there and just listen and go mmmm mmmm mmmm, and then what . Because my mother was not going to solve your problems for you. She was going to listen and she would, say what did you think about that . And then youd figure it out and by the time you leave, you would say so much of my ability to get out there again and again and again had was going up to that little counseling room and sitting and having Marion Robinson go mmmm, youll be fine. Just go on back down there. Cant stop now. Did she ever tell you, you know youve talked about that a lack. What are you gonna do . Did she ever say, youve talked about that a lot, now what are you going to do about it . No. My mother, and i write about this, my parents had a very advanced sense of parenting at a very early age. They taught us how to advocate for ourselves very early. So her expectation was, you know how to fix your problems, you know what to do. And when you teach kids at an early age that they have a voice worth listening to, number one, and that their opinions actually matter and that is what they get day in and day out a