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I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
5/5 stars and a favorite

“Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with the shades of deeper meaning.��

Wow what a story, I loved this book. So far my favorite book of the year. Maya Angelou is a great story teller, has a way with words and vocabulary. What I enjoyed about this book was all the strong women that helped raise Maya. Her strict Southern Christian grandmother, her mother whom I grew to love over time and the neighbor who introduced her to the power of reading out loud. The book had a strong and perfect ending for me. Since this is my first Maya Angelou book I look forward to reading more of her work.

4 stars

Maya Angelou's memoir is sweet, warm, funny, and often tragic. In it the author was bravely open, exposing intimate stories of cruelty imposed upon her and a dysfunctional, tragic childhood. And she does it with warmth and simplicity that allowed me to feel compassion and have empathy without feeling sympathy. She wrote her story with truth and a matter-of-fact style that never seemed as though she wanted the reader to feel sorry for her or to even understand her. It seemed as though she only wanted to share herself and her truth. My mama bear emerged early and often and I wish that I could give that child a hug. But as much as I felt the sadness and weight of the story I also laughed and in the end the book gave me joy.

I have wavered between a three and four star rating, but in the end the book made me feel and for me that is always worth tipping the score up if I am on the fence.

November 20, 2012
Rating: 3 stars
Review: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is the first of six volumes that make up the autobiography of Maya Angelou also known as Marguerite Ann Johnson. This is the years of three to sixteen and the birth of Marguerite’s first child. This autobiography gave me the closest picture of what it was like to grow up black and female in Arkansas during the thirties. Maya and her brother Bailey were very close. They were sent to live with the grandmother when they were three and four. Maya wondered what they had done wrong to be so rejected by their parents. Arkansas gave Maya her moral center and taught her to be wary of whites. In California she was able to find her strength as a African American woman. Ms Angelou’s love of literature was universal (not black or white) but something we as readers can relate. I believe that this book was included in 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die because it was the autobiography of a Black woman. I also think the format of six volumes for an autobiography also makes it unique. It was enjoyable and fast to read.

So honest, both beautiful and heartbreaking, and beautifully heartbreaking. I really miss Maya’s voice and simple truth telling in the world today. I’m definitely glad I finally made the time to read this one. And I found both truths about the past that were enlightening, and parts that seem just as relevant today...some quotes feel like she is directly speaking across the void about our current issues.

5 Stars

Listened to this one recently for my TBR, and I thought it was remarkable. The way she speaks about her experiences with internalized rascism, the racial climate of 1930s America, sexual trauma, and growing up feeling intellectually isolated were all incredibly moving and thought provoking.

I found myself extremely touched by her and Bailey's relationship throughout the book. My brother is one of my best friends too- and we also grew up as academically engaged bookworms in a rural area so I related heavily to this aspect of the book.

I also really loved the way she writes so clearly through the lens of a child and how they perceive and fear/don't fear things. As well, the weaving of broader historical events into her life story/young perspective were really well done.

There's this one passage about the changing demographics in her neighbourhood in San Francisco, and I loved how it's written that you don't immediately get that she's speaking about the Japanese Internment camps, since she doesn't get what is happenign at first either. Also loved how she reflects on this by speaking about how black people were surprisingly not bothered by this at the time because it allowed them to set up businesses, indicating the complex relationship between different marginalized groups in a racist society.

I also loved the positive female figures in her life such as Mrs. Flowers. I actually teach the section where she teaches her to read out loud when I teach SAT prep, so I found it really funny to finally read it in context of the book.

I find this quite a difficult one rate. It hooked me from the start and I was fully engaged as Maya tells the story of her childhood, I especially loved her relationship with her brother Bailey. But then it loses me in the final third, when they move back to California again, I seemed to lose connection with the author. Some really big life events happen to Maya, but it all feels rushed and lacking in the descriptive details that really drew me into her story at the start of the book. Then it quite abruptly ends, I appreciate this is the first in a six-part series, but rather than leaving me wanting more I felt myself switch off from her story.

Despite my mixed feelings I love how frank and honest this book is and I will try the next book but I think I will pick up the audio version. I always feel I get more out of memoirs/autobiographies that way, especially if they are narrated by the author.

So I think about 3.5 stars for me.

This is the first, and most famous part, of Maya Angelou’s biography and deals with her early life being raised by her grandmother in Arkansas, and teenage years spent with her mother in California. I liked the idyllic passages of country life and the restrained but genuine connection with her grandmother, but there are also terrible instances of racism and the sexual violence she suffers. I found the final sections set in California less engaging and a little puzzling, as her motivations seemed to become vague.

Angelou writes clearly of early events with a child’s voice, showing how children misinterpret and distort the actions and motivations of adults, but also interprets them in hindsight with the eloquence and perception of an adult. Her narrative is a powerful and moving one, and many of the scenes from the book are memorable - particularly for me the memory of her school graduation ceremony which incisively shows both the effect of racist policies on the individual and the indomitable spirit that refuses to be cast down.

I really enjoyed this and would like to read some of the later volumes of autobiography as I feel Maya as an adult will have even more inspiring and interesting experiences to relate, and I would like to see where life takes her next.