Alice Walker was born into a poor family of sharecroppers in Eatonton, Georgia. Her mother, who worked as a maid to support her eight children, enrolled her in first grade. She acknowledged how intelligent her daughter was and knew that education was important. One day, while she was playing with her brothers, she was shot in the eye with a BB gun. She was self conscious and worried about what other people thought of her. She said, "For a long time, I thought I was very ugly and disfigured." Because of her low self esteem, she excluded herself from others and when asked how she felt about the incident, she said, "This made me shy and timid, and I often reacted to insults and slights that were not intended." Alice was motivated to write about