Book Reviews: Book Review of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou -- Blue Rectangle

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I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Maya Angelou

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"Well, I read While the Caged Bird Sings. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings several times throughout my life. It was probably one of the first books I checked out from the library in middle school, I remember; and I was fascinated at that time by anything written by an African-American author. Child of the 70's, I grew up in that whole political environment movement here in Oakland, and actually just kind of fell in love with wanting to find out about people's stories, was fascinated that this African-American woman had written a book about her life. The book is about well, it's a series of autobiographies; it kind of begins her series of autobiographies and it actually kind of traces her life from her earliest memories around two and three years old 'til about 16 years of age. It's sort of a coming of age story set primarily between Arkansas, California, because that's where her family's kind of bounce her back and forth through the early parts of her life. Chronicles some struggles that she went through within her family and also within herself. There were several incidences throughout the book that made me sort of uncomfortable, sort of cringe. Certainly there was a sexual molestation that was very difficult to read; and just to visualize an eight year-old child being molested, that's hard to read anytime. I would certainly give I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings a five in terms of a star rating. I think the strength of the writing itself lends to many of those stars, and the way she describes her mother, who she just kind of thought as this goddess; and Maya Angelou being a poet, as well as a prose writer, the words that she used to describe it are just so visual. You can just actually see her mother kind of come up from the floor as you're reading."