I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
A phenomenal #1 bestseller that has appeared on the New York Times bestseller list for nearly three years, this memoir traces Maya Angelou's childhood in a small, rural community during the 1930s. Filled with images and recollections that point to the dignity and courage of black men and women,Angelou paints a sometimes disquieting, but always affecting picture of the people--and the times--that touched her life.
Product Details
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
In this first of five volumes of autobiography, poet Maya Angelou recounts a youth filled with disappointment, frustration, tragedy, and finally hard-won independence. Sent at a young age to live with her grandmother in Arkansas, Angelou learned a great deal from this exceptional woman and the tightly knit black community there. These very lessons carried her throughout the hardships she endured later in life, including a tragic occurrence while visiting her mother in St. Louis and her formative years spent in California--where an unwanted pregnancy changed her life forever. Marvelously told, with Angelou's "gift for language and observation," this "remarkable autobiography by an equally remarkable black woman from Arkansas captures, indelibly, a world of which most Americans are shamefully ignorant."
From School Library Journal
Grade 10 Up. Two slender volumes that present critical information about popular classic titles. Bloom's introduction is followed by a short biographical sketch of each author and then a detailed thematic and structural analysis that summarizes the novel in question, chapter by chapter. Excerpts from critical essays constitute the major portion of each book. Some of the essays on The Sun center around character analysis, especially of the main female character, Brett Ashley. Other entries include comparisons to other works of literature including F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, and discussions of the symbolism, morality, and the work's historical context. Hemingway's own interpretation of the book and a letter from Fitzgerald to Hemingway about its flaws are excerpted. In the second book, the writings explore Angelou's use of language, her narrative technique, unique qualities of Caged Bird, comparisons with other works, and opposition to it. Motherhood, racial pride and self-hatred, rape, and honesty are among the issues explored. While similar material may be found in many other places, these series titles will be useful resources.?Lois McCulley, Wichita Falls High School, TX
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
If your originals of these two popular titles (LJ 9/1/78, LJ 3/15/70, respectively) have seen better days, these reprints offer affordable, high-quality replacements.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Customer Reviews
I Now Know Why The Caged Birds Sings And Why Maya Is "A Living Legend!!!"
I write for the Student Operated Press and recently my boss there did an interview with this simply amazing woman! I'm also an author so if you visit my page here at Amazon, I've also put a link up on it to that interview as well.
That said, for a variety of reasons, "I Know Why The Cage Bird Sings" is definitely one of my favorite books now and as amazing as Maya is as a poet, I am looking forward to reading more of her stories.
This book is definitely an "American Classic" and I could say "African American Classic" but I believe everyone should read this book!
And she captures her experiences so well it is a kin to being transported through time and being an invisible witness as her life unfolds. I'd read some of her poetry before and as a poet myself I was very impressed and understood why she was so lauded.
But now in reading this book, it is extremely clear to me why she was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize! Maya can certainly write circles around some of the best of them!
It starts with her and her brother going across country at tender young ages alone by train and never waivers in the fact every detail is interesting. Her observations and her manner of delivery are so comfortable to read it is like she is sitting next to you recounting her life, the lives of those from her past, and how each of those shaped the remarkable woman she has become.
I don't want to say what the book is about completely or reveal too many things that would be like someone telling you about a great movie you yourself haven't seen yet, but her style, her delivery and her gift is indeed evident on every page! I would rather say I found myself transported to my own childhood and how reading this sparked memories in my own life experience.
Raised in a military family, born in Japan, but my parents are from Virginia so we would often go "Home" to visit relatives and it is from those experiences I can so relate to what she has written here. And although not Arkansas, the things Maya presents in this book took me back, way back to a time of walking up "The Hill" with a pocket full of change and buying candy from the "Store" with the squeaky swinging door. (It was really just a room converted on someone's house), and how "Those People" talked so differently than what I was use to with their "Great Day! Look at how this boy done Grown!" And how everyone had a strange nick name like Titter Rabbit or Binky or Pug, (My now late Uncle), and my Dad who everyone there called (Bo).
In this instance we were the "City Folk" or at least that is how they received us there. Cast Iron Stoves, bed pans, out houses and chiggers and racer snakes and the un used well in the back of the yard at my one Grandmothers and so many stray cats and dogs with ticks on them the size of marbles...
I can't recommend this book highly enough and I'm left wondering if this incredible legendary writer known the world over for her literary skills, also knows how to make "Batter Bread" like my Grandmother use to make:)
5 Stars is all I can give here but the truth of the matter is this is a "Classic" and I am sort of kicking myself for not reading this earlier in my life. (I'd bought the book years ago, and decided well since Judyth Piazza interviewed her, let me see if this poet can really write).
Still picking my jaw up off the floor:)
Forever blessings to you Maya and...
"Weekdays revolved on a sameness wheel. They turned into themselves so steadily and inevitably that each seemed to be the original of yesterday's rough draft. Saturdays, however, always broke the mold and dared to be different."
You've dared to be different as well and left a legacy that I'm speechless to try and convey for the rest of us.
With the truest of respect,
Chase Von
Your Chance to Hear The Last Panther Speak
Quick Read
This is good book for a summary of "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" by Maya Angelou that gives the characters and events of the reading for study and research that one could find any given chapter to support the ideas for an essay.
The time of book that moves you
Maya Angelou's I know why the caged bird sings is the type of book that people who love to read will enjoy. The book follows Angelou through her early years, mostly spent with you grandmother who ran a local store. More than an auto-biography. Its Angelou's words, her presence that really reaches out and grabs you. Through all her hardships and obstacles in life she was able to overcome them and thrive. Maya Angelou is an fantastic writer who so easily connects with the heart and souls of her readers. Truly an enjoyable experience.
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