book data
13,752 ratings,
3.98
average rating, 798 reviews
(more data...)
edit
published
May 1st 1983
(first published 1970)
by Bantam
binding
Mass Market Paperback, 304 pages
isbn
0553279378
(isbn13: 9780553279375)
description
In this first of five volumes of autobiography, poet Maya Angelou recounts a youth filled with disappointment, frustration, tragedy, and finally hard-...more
Sign in to Goodreads to see your friends' reviews of this book.
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Next Best Boo...: OFFICIAL SUMMER CHALLENGE 2009 | 3785 | 4389 | 12 minutes ago | |
| The Next Best Boo...: Your Latest Splurge | 5974 | 6309 | 2 hours, 5 min ago | |
| The Next Best Boo...: What are you reading? | 13057 | 10997 | 3 hours, 12 min ago |
friend reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.
other reviews (showing 1-20 of 17,239)
All ratings
|
5 stars (4607)
|
4 stars (5381)
|
3 stars (2852)
|
2 stars (660)
|
1 star (225)
|
avg 3.98
editions: all | this edition
editions: all | this edition
I really enjoyed this book. It was required reading for a University course I took on Adolescent Literature.
This book has been placed on banned book lists by needlessly close-minded people for it's real life content.
The book tastefully addresses issues of molestation, rape, racism. But it does so within the context of the trials and tribulations of growing up as well.
The book presents things in a direct and extremely vivid fashion, but it is not garishly or n...more
This book has been placed on banned book lists by needlessly close-minded people for it's real life content.
The book tastefully addresses issues of molestation, rape, racism. But it does so within the context of the trials and tribulations of growing up as well.
The book presents things in a direct and extremely vivid fashion, but it is not garishly or n...more
Like this review?
yes
(4 people liked it)
add a comment
In her nonfiction autobiography, Maya Angelou describes her life from her young girl life up to the birth of her first child at age 16. The book drew me in at the very beginning because of the talent Angelou has with language, scenery, and loading the moment with emotion. Another intense draw for me was the fact that it is a nonfiction book. I was constantly thinking I can’t believe she had these experiences.
When Maya turned three, she and her brother, Bailey, went to live with he...more
When Maya turned three, she and her brother, Bailey, went to live with he...more
Like this review?
yes
(3 people liked it)
add a comment
Read in January, 2009
recommended to Stephanie by:
Classics Bookclub at 5 Minutes for Books Blogrecommends it for: noone
When I picked up I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou I knew two things:
1. The author is friends with Oprah and the Clintons.
2. The book is considered a classic.
The book is mostly set in the tiny town of Stamps, Arkansas. I lived much of my childhood within an hour's drive of Stamps so I found that detail very interesting.
The account of life as a Negro (the term Ms. Angelou uses) in rural Arkansas was fascinating. Some of it brought to mind me...more
1. The author is friends with Oprah and the Clintons.
2. The book is considered a classic.
The book is mostly set in the tiny town of Stamps, Arkansas. I lived much of my childhood within an hour's drive of Stamps so I found that detail very interesting.
The account of life as a Negro (the term Ms. Angelou uses) in rural Arkansas was fascinating. Some of it brought to mind me...more
Like this review?
yes
(2 people liked it)
4 comments
Has a copy to sell/swap
—
Read in June, 2008
recommended to Peter by:
The entire earthrecommends it for: Aracely
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
Like this review?
yes
(2 people liked it)
add a comment
Read in October, 2007
recommends it for:
everyone
After reading Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings I felt I knew the real Maya. Angelou doesn't try to cover up any of her mistakes or bad experiences and allows the reader to see her faults. There is no screen between the reader and the author.
Starting with Angelou as a young girl the reader is taken through a lifetime of heartache and experiences in 16 years of Angelou's life. Coming from a stable background and a lucky upbringing I thought it would be hard to relate to Ange...more
Starting with Angelou as a young girl the reader is taken through a lifetime of heartache and experiences in 16 years of Angelou's life. Coming from a stable background and a lucky upbringing I thought it would be hard to relate to Ange...more
Like this review?
yes
(2 people liked it)
add a comment
Read in January, 2009
Another 7th grade humanities class read, this book, an autobiography of a young Maya Angelou, mixed all the things an autobiography needs. Some unbelievable events, tragic events that bring the reader closer to the narrator, and everyday life to bring things down to scale. The reader truly feels for Maya in her life of growing up Black in the south.
Like this review?
yes
(1 person liked it)
add a comment
01/15/09
Sunny
added it
I know why the caged bird sings by Maya Angelou
Rating: 9/10
I really enjoyed this book. It is the autobiography of the poet as a young girl-- spanning from age three to the birht of her fistr child in her late teens. It is so rare to find a book about a famous person's childhood (unless of course the were famous as a child) and the book is exceptionally well written. The language gradually, subtly progresses as the main character ages. Even though it sounds like it would be boring and...more
Rating: 9/10
I really enjoyed this book. It is the autobiography of the poet as a young girl-- spanning from age three to the birht of her fistr child in her late teens. It is so rare to find a book about a famous person's childhood (unless of course the were famous as a child) and the book is exceptionally well written. The language gradually, subtly progresses as the main character ages. Even though it sounds like it would be boring and...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in June, 2009
This autobiographical work, by Maya Angelou, is uplifting and inspiring. This book documents Angelou's early years as a child in Stamps, Arkansas. She recounts how she and her brother, Bailey, were raised by their grandmother, after the breakup of their parents' marriage. Angelou tells of her experiences as a young African-American being raised in the rural south. Several years later, she and Bailey are sent to live with their mother in Saint Louis. There she is molested by her mother's boy...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in March, 2009
This book is one of the few I have read which are rather lengthy, but I enjoyed anyhow. Before reading the book, I have read many of Maya Angelou's poems and studied a little more about her life. Even then she was a brilliant writer, and reading this book about her life only made her shine brighter to my eyes.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is on the list of top 100 banned books because of a particular section where she describes how she was sexually harrased by someone as a child. ...more
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is on the list of top 100 banned books because of a particular section where she describes how she was sexually harrased by someone as a child. ...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in May, 2009
I was only really familiar with Maya Angelou through her poems. I bought this book for my mother when I was in middle school and here I am nearly fifteen years later, reading it myself.
There were just so many moments that made me laugh, cheer and cry. Maya Angelou is simply a wonderful writer who has overcome such extraordinary circumstances, most not of her own doing but one major one of her own. As she said, "I had accepted my plight as the hapless, put-upon victim of fate ...more
There were just so many moments that made me laugh, cheer and cry. Maya Angelou is simply a wonderful writer who has overcome such extraordinary circumstances, most not of her own doing but one major one of her own. As she said, "I had accepted my plight as the hapless, put-upon victim of fate ...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in April, 2009
I read Angelou’s novel in 8th grade, and before I read it again this year the only thing I remembered was the rape scene—8th grade was too young to introduce such a graphic scene of incest. However, the story is full of good morals; Marguerite Johnson shows incredible perseverance throughout the whole story (she spends months applying for jobs even after many rejections). She faces incredible adversity: neither of her parents wanted her, she was raped, and later has an illegitimate child. Bu...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in May, 2009
I believe that certain books should be banned. I actually don't understand how they made it on some bookshelves if people especially the author knew that the book would cause a problem to begin with. I think the book should be banned for three reasons. My three reasons for why I think books should be banned are because of the sexual content, homosexuality, and drugs.
My first reason for why I think that books should be banned because of the sexual content. I don't believe that books s...more
My first reason for why I think that books should be banned because of the sexual content. I don't believe that books s...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in January, 2009
I've always heard of Maya Angelou and what a literary genius and inspiring woman she is, but I had never picked up a book of hers until now. And just at the right moment too while I'm currently obsessed with reading memoirs and autobiographies. I was most impressed by her ability to inhabit her younger self so effortlessly, skilfully speaking from the voice of her pre-teen and teenage self as if she was reliving her memories right then and there. This was most apparent when as a 16-year-old, she...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in December, 2008
I know this probably makes me a terrible person, but I was NOT a fan of this book! I think a part of me didn't like it because a former student of mine suggested it to me (she's only 14 years old!!!). I spent most of the book thinking how terrible it would be to have a 14 year old read those things. She was required to read it for her SEVENTH grade English class!?!?! It seemed completely inappropriate to me for a 14 year old read about an even younger person being molested (and thinking it w...more
Like this review?
yes
2 comments
Read in February, 2009
This is one of the first books that I read during my adolescent years. I grew up with my nose in a book all of the time, and as I became older I naturally matured my reading. I had always been captivated by the intellect of Maya Angelou and thought it would be interesting to read her books. She is a brilliant writer who has the keen capability of creating a bright story through her profound use of words. I was also privaleged to attend Bennett College located in Greensboro, NC, which is a histor...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in May, 2009
I love this book. Maya Angelou's writing is just so good. A favorite part of the book for me was her intense feelings she experienced while about to graduate from the 8th grade. Her class had to sit through a speech made by a white politician. In his speech, which he thought was of course encouraging, he was offensive to the black students and the black population as a whole. Maya communicates what goes through her head after he speaks.
She says, "It was awful to be Negro and to...more
She says, "It was awful to be Negro and to...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in April, 2009
Maya Angelou's autobigraphy can be thought of as the inverse of To Kill A Mockingbird. In To Kill A Mockingbird, the African-Americans are all humble, hardworking, honest people forced to patiently endure prejudice. Luckily they have a "white savior" in Atticus.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings covers some of the same time period, only these Black people are hostile to whites even in the resignation of their sourthern, small time religion. Later, when Maya has moved to San Francisc...more
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings covers some of the same time period, only these Black people are hostile to whites even in the resignation of their sourthern, small time religion. Later, when Maya has moved to San Francisc...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in February, 2009
I have read and loved Maya Angelou's poetry, so I was excited to read her autobiography. I was quite disappointed. First of all, Angelou writes beautifully and I was fascinated to see her perspective on racism, a world I know so little of. That was the good parts. Then the ugly. The book didn't read like a novel. It read like a collection of disjointed vignettes and each time I was just getting interested in a character or a story, she'd move on to a new one. I was very uncomfortable with her de...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
“I Know Why The Cage Bird Sings”
Why does the cage bird sing? The book written as a symbol as explores” Why Does The Cage Bird Sings”. Maya Angelou writes a renowned poet it and master of English language the book is an autobiography of her life. Not the fairytale it seems, Angelou’s life was filled with molestation, prostitution, and poverty. This book is only a good read because it’s ability to pull you in, Angelou appeal to your emotions, and the unique setting flashback on...more
Why does the cage bird sing? The book written as a symbol as explores” Why Does The Cage Bird Sings”. Maya Angelou writes a renowned poet it and master of English language the book is an autobiography of her life. Not the fairytale it seems, Angelou’s life was filled with molestation, prostitution, and poverty. This book is only a good read because it’s ability to pull you in, Angelou appeal to your emotions, and the unique setting flashback on...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
The first in a series of autobiographies by Angelou, this tells the story of young Maya growing up in racially divided Arkansas. Her views of racism are stark. I think I found a love of language with her books and poetry.
Like this review?
yes
(1 person liked it)
add a comment
Sometimes the first line of a book just grabs you by the nostrils and drags your fool head into its pages, preventing escape in any way, shape or form. Which of these opening lines has its phalanges most firmly planted in your nasal cavities?
"He— for there could be no doubt of his sex, though the fashion of the time did something to disguise it— was in the act of slicing at the head of a Moor which swung from the rafters."
Orlando by Virginia Woolf
Orlando by Virginia Woolf
"He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad."
Scaramouche by Raphael Sabatini
Scaramouche by Raphael Sabatini
"Of all the things that drive men to sea, the most common disaster, I've come to learn, is women."
Middle Passage by Charles Johnson
Middle Passage by Charles Johnson
"When I finally caught up with Abraham Trahearne, he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts in a ramshackle joint just outside of Sonoma, California, drinking the heart right out of a fine spring afternoon."
The Last Good Kiss by James Crumley
The Last Good Kiss by James Crumley
“'When your mama was the geek, my dreamlets,' Papa would say, 'she made the nipping off of noggins such a crystal mystery that the hens themselves yearned toward her, waltzing around her, hypnotized with longing.'”
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn
"Most really pretty girls have pretty ugly feet, and so does Mindy Metalman, Lenore notices, all of a sudden."
The Broom of the System by David Foster Wallace
The Broom of the System by David Foster Wallace
"It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York."
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
“'To be born again,' sang Gibreel Farishta tumbling from the heavens, 'first you have to die.'”
The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
"The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children's games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up."
The Napoleon of Notting Hill by G.K. Chesterton
The Napoleon of Notting Hill by G.K. Chesterton
"Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person."
Back When We Were Grownups by Anne Tyler
Back When We Were Grownups by Anne Tyler
"What if this young woman, who writes such bad poems, in competition with her husband, whose poems are equally bad, should stretch her remarkably long and well-made legs out before you, so that her skirt slips up to the tops of her stockings?"
Imaginative Qualities of Actual Things by Gilbert Sorrentino
Imaginative Qualities of Actual Things by Gilbert Sorrentino
"There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it."
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis
"Ages ago, Alex, Allen and Alva arrived at Antibes, and Alva allowing all, allowing anyone, against Alex's admonition, against Allen's angry assertion: another African amusement . . . anyhow, as all argued, an awesome African army assembled and arduously advanced against an African anthill, assiduously annihilating ant after ant, and afterward, Alex astonishingly accuses Albert as also accepting Africa's antipodal ant annexation."
Alphabetical Africa by Walter Abish
Alphabetical Africa by Walter Abish
"The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel."
Neuromancer by William Gibson
Neuromancer by William Gibson
"Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show."
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth."
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
"Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit."
The Hobbit: Or There and Back Again by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Hobbit: Or There and Back Again by J.R.R. Tolkien
"As Gregor Samsa awoke from a night of uneasy dreaming, he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect."
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
"Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much."
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J.K. Rowling
"When I was three and Bailey was four, we had arrived in the musty little town, wearing tags on our wrists which instructed - 'To Whom It May Concern' - that we were Marguerite and Bailey Johnson Jr., from Long Beach, California, en route to Stamps, Arkansas, c/o Mrs. Annie Henderson."
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
"Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small, unregarded yellow sun."
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
"Somewhere in la Mancha, in a place whose name I do not care to remember, a gentleman lived not long ago, one of those who has a lance and ancient shield on a shelf and keeps a skinny nag and a greyhound for racing."
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
"Of Herbert West, who was my friend in college and in after life, I can speak only with extreme terror."
Herbert West: Reanimator and Other Stories by H.P. Lovecraft
Herbert West: Reanimator and Other Stories by H.P. Lovecraft
"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
"When a day that you happen to know is Wednesday starts off by sounding like Sunday, there is something seriously wrong somewhere."
The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
"My lady and I are being shut up in a tower for seven years"
Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale
Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale
"'Barabbas came to us by sea', the child Clara wrote in her delicate calligraphy."
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
"No one would have believed, in the last years of the nineteenth century, that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were being scrutinized and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinize the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water."
The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
"Dr. Weiss, at forty, knew that her life had been ruined by literature."
The Debut by Anita Brookner
The Debut by Anita Brookner
"There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie and Dim and we sat in the Korova milkbar trying to make up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening."
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
"I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice - not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother's death, but because he is the reason I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meany."
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents, except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the house-tops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness."
Paul Clifford by Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
Paul Clifford by Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
Bah! Foolish poll-maker-person! The nostril seizing power of these paltry lines is minimal, at best! Look to the comments section where I shall carefully type out my choice, which you have so imprudently omitted!
78 comments Sign in to vote!
quotes from this book
"Without willing it, I had gone from being ignorant of being ignorant to being aware of being aware. And the worst part of my awareness was that I didn't know what I was aware of. I knew I knew very little, but I was certain that the things I had yet to learn wouldn't be taught to me at George Washington High School. "
More quotes...
