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I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelou's Autobiography, #1)

Maya Angelou

Start date: August 1, 2017

Finish date: August 30, 2017

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Jun 25, 2019 Barbara rated it really liked it

Maya Angelou, born Marguerite Annie Johnson in 1928, was an African-American poet, singer, actress, writer, director, producer, composer, and civil rights activist. This first book of Angelou's seven-part autobiography covers her childhood and adolescence, up to the age of seventeen.

Angelou had a turbulent childhood, beginning with her parents' divorce when she was three years old. At that time, Marguerite and her beloved four-year-old brother Bailey were sent from their father's home in Califor ...more

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Aug 30, 2019 Christina rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, autobiography-memoir, books-i-would-read-over-and-over, biography, classics, lauryn-s-future-reading-list

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I'm almost kind of embarrassed to have waited this long to read this book. I know everyone in the world probably have read this book except for me, but I've now become a member and fan of Maya Angelou.

From the beginning of this memoir I was enraptured by her poetic prose, her imaginative language, and her ability to bring you along with her in her storytelling. She has such a way with words, that it is pure beauty to read and visualize what she's telling you.

I learned of her upbringing from th I'm almost kind of embarrassed to have waited this long to read this book. I know everyone in the world probably have read this book except for me, but I've now become a member and fan of Maya Angelou.

From the beginning of this memoir I was enraptured by her poetic prose, her imaginative language, and her ability to bring you along with her in her storytelling. She has such a way with words, that it is pure beauty to read and visualize what she's telling you.

I learned of her upbringing from the age of 3 years old to 16 years old. I couldn't help but sympathize with her in all that happened to her during her formative years. I was shocked and surprised that this "Still I Rise" poet went through this type of childhood. I had imagined Maya with some peaceful childhood, uneventful, and probably Southern raised, but nothing like the life she had that she described in this book.

Maya Angelou also has a great sense of humor and a way to deal/cope with her situations she found herself in. It was almost as if things were desensitized over a period of time as she reflects back on what happened to her. When she talks about how she was mute for a period of time (5 years and speaking only to her brother) made me reflect on the seriousness of what happened to her. However, the way she wrote about this part of her life, it was almost downplayed as if this was a normal reaction as to what happened to her, and there was no other choice for her but to be silent.

Another incident that occurred that made me think about her thought process in writing was when she described the incident that happened when she was with her father in Mexico. The way she wrote about that stressful incident and finding herself voluntarily homeless in a junkyard for a month had me really have questions about why she did the things she did. She initially described it as something that just happened to her, but as you read through the situation, I find that she could have avoided being there all together. I just wonder if she was really naive about life, being that she lived a kind of sheltered country life in Stamps, Arkansas.

Her parents were described as aloof and un-participative in her upbringing... unsure of really how to parent her and her brother, they were both lost causes as parents, in my opinion. Unfortunate for her grandmother to have raised her because she had her own child (Uncle Willie) to take care of, but it may have just saved her and her brother's early life, as their lives just kind of took a free-fall with their parents.

I truly believe the structured country upbringing did not prepare Maya for a life outside of Stamps, Arkansas. She did not know anything about the "real world" and how people operate outside of the forced obedient living of the South. Seeing that she became a teenage mother at 16 because she had to find out whether or not she was a lesbian, and needed to have sex to determine her sexual preference, is telling in itself.

I was kind of disappointed in the way the books ends, but I understand that this is the first installation of her multi-autobiographies that she published. I am curious as to find out more about Maya and how she became the great poet that we all know and love now as the legendary unofficial"poet laureate."

I would rate this book a 4 and recommend to other who have never read about her life. This book can easily be a re-read for many years. I just wish the ending of this book closed the chapter of this part of her life, but it leaves it open-ended which can disappoint some readers.
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