Amy Winehouse's Family Shares Rare Photos and Handwritten Notes in New Book (Exclusive) (2024)

Amy Winehouse's Early Years

Amy Winehouse As a Happy Baby

Long before she was making the world smile with her rousing hits, Amy was bringing joy and cheer to her family. “We always wanted the world to know the real Amy, where she came from and what made her tick,” her father, Mitch Winehouse, told PEOPLE.

Winehouse Family Beach Day

“In all aspects she was just a normal Jewish kid from North London, who did normal kid things, went to drama class, loved her grandma, her mum and dad, loved her brother," Mitch said.

Amy Winehouse's Journals

The collection of never-before-seen photos, journal entries and handwritten letters and poems, will be published on Aug. 29, days before what would have been her 40th birthday.

Amy Winehouse Playing Around

It looks like Amy cultivated her playful attitude at a young age, as she's pictured here seemingly playing hide and seek in a clothing hamper.

Amy Winehouse's Grade School Days

The cheerful tot is captured smiling while on a playground slide in her early grade school era.

Amy Enjoys the Pool

The rosy-cheek tot is photographed relaxing in a pool on what seems to be a hot summer day.

Say Cheese!

The future hitmaker shows off her full-bodied curls and wide smile in this sunny pic.

Amy and Alex Winehouse Go Back to School

Amy Winehouse and her brother, Alex, look photoshoot-ready while posing for the camera in their school uniforms.

Hugs from Big Bro

Never one to follow the rules, Amy looks off-camera as her brother poses for the lens.

Amy Winehouse in High School

"From the outset, we realized that school was probably never going to fulfill Amy. ‘I’m bored,’ was a phrase she often repeated," her parents said in an excerpt of the foreword given exclusively to PEOPLE. "Teachers told us she was bright and capable, yet there was always a ‘but’. But ... she couldn’t sit still, or she couldn’t concentrate, or she misbehaved in class."

Amy and Her Family

"She was a loyal, generous friend. She’d help anybody… Just a wonderful human being who saw the best in everybody,” her parents describe their daughter.

The Teenage Years

"Amy devoured films, musicals, novels and poetry, or took inspiration from our family life in North London or the twists and turns of her many friendships," her parents said of their late daughter in the foreword.

"Music also seeped effortlessly into Amy’s consciousness and she could recite lyrics and sing tunes after hearing a song maybe just once or twice. At her nan Cynthia’s house, she was surrounded by jazz music: anyone from Frank Sinatra to Ella Fitzgerald to Sarah Vaughan. And at home, she performed songs from the musical Mary Poppins or Jewish hymns that we’d taught her."

Amy Winehouse's List of Ambitions

A meticulous planner, Amy's family knew her to make lists for everything, "what she wanted to buy for her room or, perhaps more accurately, what we or her grandparents were going to buy for her," her parents wrote. "She listed every item, the shop where it could be bought from and its cost, all neatly totaled up at the end."

Above, is one of her famous lists, carefully plotting all the things she wanted to do once she found fame.

Amy Goofing Around with Her Dad

In this silly flick, the father-daughter duo joke about Mitch managing Amy.

'To My Darling Mother Janis'

In the book, Janis shares this sweet poem Amy wrote her. "Mum, you are the best/ A mechanical genius too/ You fix people's bikes/ And I love u,'" the sweet poem begins.

She goes on to write, " You saved my life/Oh, thanks so much/You'll always have/That special touch" and concludes, "I bet that dad/Is lucky to/Have someone/As special as you."

Amy Winehouse Self-Reflects

In a journal entry titled, "Good Words to Describe Me," Amy jots down all the adjectives she believed captured her best. "Imaginative," " "melodramatic," and loud are some words that made the list.

Amy Winehouse in Happier Times

The bright star is photographed while on stage at the Jazz Cafe in London on Jan. 27, 2004.

Amy Winehouse, Star Performer

With her signature beehive hair pouf in place, Amy applies her iconic, thick cat eye.

Amy Winehouse's 'Frankie' poem

Dated Sept. 7, 2001, this seems to be an ode to a person named Frankie. Amy famously titled her debuted album Frank after Frank Sinatra, who was a lifelong inspiration.

"Whenever she got chastised at school, she would always sing ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ — before she went up to the headmistress to be told off, she’d be singing the song because it cheered her up. It was a very special song for her,” he father told Digital Spy, per Far Out Magazine.

It's unclear whether the Frankie in this poem is Frank Sinatra, however.

Amy Winehouse's Goals for 1996

While some merely recite their new year's resolutions, Amy would jot hers down and check them off as the year rolled by. According to this journal entry, she achieved all of her 1996 goals, except, she couldn't stop biting her nails.

'Amy Winehouse: In Her Words' Book Cover

Royalties from the book will go to the Amy Winehouse Foundation, the charity her family created 12 years ago on her birthday, Sept. 14, weeks after she died of accidental alcohol poisoning. With projects in the U.S., U.K. and the Caribbean, it aims to educate young people about the dangers of drugs and alcohol and to support the recovery of those who struggle with substance abuse.

From the forthcoming book Amy Winehouse: In Her Words by Amy Winehouse.

Copyright © 2023 by Amy Winehouse Estate. Excerpted by permission of Dey Street

Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.