I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
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Book Reviews of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Book Review: Required Reading
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a book that most people should be required to read. Although I'm not quite finished with it, I've already been struck with Maya Angelou's straightforward writing style. She's honest and up front. And she doesn't write like an adult looking back upon her life, but actually takes you back and puts you in her place and the thoughts that went through her head. One reviewer said that Angelou herself was racist. I don't think this is true. The truth is that there was a large amount of racism and segregation when Angelou was growing up, and you can't blame her for telling the truth about it, and to the person who claimed that including the rape was sick, you're not only being juvenile but are missing the point entirely. This is an autobiography and in autobiographies people recount events that have had large impacts upon them, that have shaped their lives, and being raped, especially at such a young age, would definitely have an impact on you. All in all, I find this book refreshingly honest, not to mention many times poetic.Book Review: This book should be required reading for everyone!
Summary: 5 Stars
Maya Angelou is quite an author. Her writing style is so interesting and compelling. I read this book straight through - I simply could not put it down. After I finished this book, I read her other four biographical works, all very interesting, but I think "caged bird" was by far the best of the group. It is a book that gives you a deep abiding sense of compassion for the gross inequities of Jim Crow laws and it gave me a keyhole peak of what it meant to be black and poor.
Maya's description of listening to the radio and cheering when Joe Louis won the heavyweight championship will always stay with me. She spoke about how it felt to see a black man triumph in the ring and that it was a victory for every black man, woman and child, as well. My words are so inadequate to express the depth of emotion and sense of joy which she conveyed so beautifully in her book.
Read the book. You'll love it and be left with a treasure trove of memories and a deeper sense of compassion for all mankind.
Book Review: Magnificent!
Summary: 5 Stars
I first had the priviledge of reading Ms. Angelou's IKWTCBS in the 8th grade and now, sixteen years later have picked it up again. It is a wonderful and poignant book of a young southern black girl's struggle towards womanhood and the events which surrounded her blossoming into one of this country's finest authors. I think that the first time I read it, IKWTCBS was a bit too "adult" for me in some parts (surprising since it was assigned school reading) but now I am better able to understand the difficult and heart-wrenching circumstances in which "Ritie" found herself and how she dealt with the loneliness she felt from not having her parents around and the ways in which she sought to make up for this difficiency.
Perhaps today's children are more sophisticated than my generation. In any event, this moving autobiography should be read and taken to heart for it shows how one can overcome what may seem to be unsurmountable obstacles and thrive and contribute to the world.
Book Review: The Caged Bird Sang To Me...
Summary: 5 Stars
Maya Angelou uses her captavating childhood to entrance her readers into the life of a young black girl in the 1930's - 1940's and she shows her life experiences of heartbreak, seperation, admiration and many other qualities to take us through her life in the small town of Stamps, Arkansas where she spent that portion of her life living with her emotionaly strong and stern grandmother and her father like figure of an uncle. Later on she moves with her mother to St. Louis and then to California during WWII as young Maya trys to change to city life with the help of her brother Bailey. I belive everyone should be made to read this book and then prehaps we would have a better educated world. Maya Angelou's novel "I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings" truely woke me up to what's out there in the world and that same caged bird sang to me...Please Note: This book deals with some advanced topics such as "Racism, Rape, Violence" people reading this book should be 13+.
Book Review: Amazing!
Summary: 5 Stars
As a 22 year old college student, I had never even heard of Maya Angelou until we were required to do an out of class literary project. It just so happened that she was visiting our campus, and I went to hear her speech. She is an amazing speaker...so poetic that most of what she says would go over a lot of people's heads. I was hooked on her, and wanting to know more, I went out and bought this book. The introduction before chapter one is written in the same way she speaks. I was impressed with the completely uncensored honest way in which she tells her story. Her descritions and feelings of being molested and raped as a young child showed a side most people would never imagine speaking of. She is an amazingly strong women with an amazing life history. I plan on reading the rest of her autobiographical books and would recommend that everyone read this one!