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This is a lyrically written, powerful autobiography of a young black woman and her life in 1940's south. She suffers sexual abuse, poverty and abandonment yet she endures and grows, grasping life with a verve and intellect that catapults her through the future. It is a truly inspirational story.Unfortunately, it ends with her teen pregnancy and subsequent birth of her son. One wonders how she can be a mother while still a child herself.
I give this product 4 stars. There is no one who can orate a book like Maya Angelou, especially her own. The inflection really put meat on the word, so to speak.The only thing keeping it from 5 stars is that these three audio CD's contain only portions of the book and not it's entirety.It's worth the purchase price and if you're a Maya fan, you'll enjoy it.
The completely autobiographical memoir lures the reader in with its depiction of the lives of blacks in the Deep South during the Depression. Maya Angelou's writing is flawless and each phrase is master crafted to perfection as she explores the truth of her childhood. Children's talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives." (113) The beauty of her words flow together in a magnificent mosaic of phrases and each step in this eloquent autobiography leaves a lingering sense of compassion in the reader's heart. What pleasures could have been squeezed between the fanfolds of unending tasks. Freeman, Maya's mother's boyfriend. Along with their sacrilegious Grandmother, who is constantly in a fit in regards to any lack of obedience, Maya struggles to find her place.
On the surface, she plays a character who genuinely enjoys living among her interesting quartet of a family, her Grandmother, her physically disabled Uncle Willie, and her true joy in life, Bailey are all she has in the world until her estranged father arrives to take Maya and Bailey to live with "Mother Dearest." The life of the big city entrances Maya and her imagination. While living with her mother, Maya receives an education, and meets all sorts of different people, one of those people being Mr. Albert Ellis once said, "The art of love.is largely persistence" and in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by critically acclaimed Maya Angelou, persistence is exactly what young Maya intends to keep strong. I truly enjoyed this radiant and joyful story with its realistic balance of pain and pleasure. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings portrays a great tale of a young girl's battle to suppress the boredom of country life and strive for a greater meaning to her existence while also dealing with the inevitable battles of growing up. "Looking through the years, I marvel that Saturday was my favorite day in the week. The reader will be forever mindful of this little girl's journey into adulthood, the quest for love, and the long standing clash with society.
Freeman takes advantage of eight year old Maya, it becomes clear that the children must be sent back home to their little town of Stamps. Within the heart of rural Stamps, Arkansas little Maya and her brother Bailey are prisoners of the tight knit community and all that it brings. The heart wrenching moments, though distressing, are overshadowed by the little joys Maya always seems to find. When Mr. For the rest of Maya's time in Stamps, she encounters all sorts of different types of people; people who will make a great impact in due time, and those who simply play a role in every day fun. The way she confronts the temptations and urges throughout her teenage years are exposed in great detail as she takes little steps to achieve what she considers the "normality" of being a teenage girl.
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'd read some of her poetry before and as a poet myself I was very impressed and understood why she was so lauded. 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. (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.
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 write for the Student Operated Press and recently my boss there did an interview with this simply amazing woman. 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. (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. But now in reading this book, it is extremely clear to me why she was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.
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. They turned into themselves so steadily and inevitably that each seemed to be the original of yesterday's rough draft. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 VonYour Chance to Hear The Last Panther Speak
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.
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