During the time that his mother spent at work, James took care of his brothers and sisters . This is one main reason why the themes of many of his works dealt with the search for love and identity.
During his younger years James read constantly and slipped away as often as he could in order to go to the movies and even to plays. Baldwin knew he wanted to be a writer and always observed his environment very closely. He attended Fredrick Douglass High School in 1938 and soon transferred to DeWitt Clinton High School, which was a mostly white, Jewish school in the Bronx. While he was in school he excelled in poetry and journalism. Baldwin received special recognition from many of his teachers because of his ability to write. He wrote short stories, essays, poetry and editorials for the school newspaper. Baldwin also received a prize for a short story which he wrote for the church newspaper. He composed the lyrics of the farewell songs at his high schools as well. His writing abilities led him to become a star of the school magazine. Because of his financial state, much of Baldwin's early work was written at home on paper bags. His writings were, for him, a form of therapy. It allowed him to get rid of his unwanted feelings about his stepfather.
Reading was an escape not only from his stepfather, but from his home life, the Harlem streets, other boys, as well as the police. A book allowed him to get far away from his troubles, and by the age of fourteen he had read everything in the Harlem libraries and had started going down to the main library. The books taught him that his problems were not unique. .
At the age of fourteen, Baldwin also went through a dramatic religious conversion. He underwent this conversion partly because of his emerging sexuality and as a barrier against the temptations of drugs and crime. He served as a junior minister for three years at his father's church, the Fireside Pentecostal Assembly.