2 CDs / 3 hours
Read by the Author, Maya Angelou
Also available on cassette
Superbly told–with the poet’s gift for language and observation, and charged with the unforgettable emotion of remembered anguish and love–this remarkable autobiography by an equally remarkable black woman from Arkansas captures, indelibly, a world of which most Americans are unaware of.In this first of five volumes of autobiography, poet Maya Angelou recounts a youth filled with disappointment, frustration, tragedy, and finally hard-won independence. Sent at a young age to live with her grandmother in Arkansas, Angelou learned a great deal from this exceptional woman and the tightly knit black community there. These very lessons carried her throughout the hardships she endured later in life, including a tragic occurrence while visiting her mother in St. Louis and her formative years spent in California–where an unwanted pregnancy changed her life forever. Marvelously told, with Angelou’s “gift for language and observation,” this “remarkable autobiography by an equally remarkable black woman from Arkansas captures, indelibly, a world of which most Americans are shamefully ignorant.”
An adult review–and one teacher’s viewpoint May I tell you why I choose to have my ninth grade students read it? I have noticed a lot of reviews by young people, which I applaud, but an adult perspective might be helpful.I don’t particularly feel the need to defend its merits. (I am not articulate enough to do justice to that task.) As with any book, some will love it and some won’t. Guaranteed, it will make you uncomfortable at times, because one chapter describes the rape of a young person–which is painful for any…
Misleading Warnings Going into my freshman year of high school and my first honors english class I was told by my church to beware of the evil book they would force me to read– I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.It was protested because of the vivid picture painted of her sexual abuse.After reading it I can only shake my head at the people who warned me of this book. By refusing to read it because of something horrible happening to someone you fail to really realise that things of that…
I agree this book is amazing. In a poetic, yet detatched way, Maya Angelou captures the heart of her struggles growing up female and Black during the Depression. Her style and description draw in the reader and keep her spellbound even during the most painful scenes. You feel deeply for the author and her little brother as they drift through their lives living for a bit of affection. Neglected by their divorced parents, Maya and her brother get sent to Arkansas at ages 4 and 5 to live with their grandma and handicapped…