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."


From School Library Journal
Grade 10 Up. Two slender volumes that present critical information about popular classic titles. Bloom's introduction is followed by a short biographical sketch of each author and then a detailed thematic and structural analysis that summarizes the novel in question, chapter by chapter. Excerpts from critical essays constitute the major portion of each book. Some of the essays on The Sun center around character analysis, especially of the main female character, Brett Ashley. Other entries include comparisons to other works of literature including F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, and discussions of the symbolism, morality, and the work's historical context. Hemingway's own interpretation of the book and a letter from Fitzgerald to Hemingway about its flaws are excerpted. In the second book, the writings explore Angelou's use of language, her narrative technique, unique qualities of Caged Bird, comparisons with other works, and opposition to it. Motherhood, racial pride and self-hatred, rape, and honesty are among the issues explored. While similar material may be found in many other places, these series titles will be useful resources.?Lois McCulley, Wichita Falls High School, TXCopyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
If your originals of these two popular titles (LJ 9/1/78, LJ 3/15/70, respectively) have seen better days, these reprints offer affordable, high-quality replacements.Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From AudioFile
Poet and writer Angelou eloquently reads excerpts from her autobiographical work. Her presence, felt through the reading, heightens the strength and beauty of her story. A male reader performs the "narrative bridge," attempting to string the vignettes together. Listeners will long for a full text reading of this book. Since Angelou's works appear on many reading lists, teachers can successfully use excerpts from Caged Bird for their classes. S.G. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From 500 Great Books by Women; review by Vickie Sears
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is the brilliant, sonorous story of Maya Angelou's early life in Arkansas and California. At the age of five, Maya and her brother Bailey are taken to St. Louis to visit their mother, but after Maya is raped they are returned to the rock-hard loving care of their grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas. Maya stops speaking for five years but becomes a keen observer of everything around her, including the racial politics and divisions of her town. In a subtle maneuver between grandmother Henderson and Mrs. Bertha Flowers, "aristocrat of Black Stamps," Maya "got to know the lady who threw me my first life line." Mrs. Flowers tells the silent child: "Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with the shades of deeper meaning." So begins the reawakening of Maya's voice and her own music. She survives adolescence, breaks a racial barrier in seeking work, becomes a mother, and closes what is the beginning of a wondrous series of autobiographical works. A consummate poet, Maya Angelou creates phrases like "voices rubbed together," "Bailey looped his language around his tongue," and "knapsack of misery" as she writes of pain, self-discovery, and, most lovingly, of joy. -- For great reviews of books for girls, check out Let's Hear It for the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14.


Review
"This testimony from a black sister marks the beginning of a new era in the minds and hearts of all black men and women... I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, liberates the reader into life simply because Maya Angelou confronts her own life with such a moving wonder, such a luminous dignity. I have no words for this achievement, but I know that not since the days of my childhood, when the people in books were more real than the people one saw every day, have I found myself so moved... Her portrait is a biblical study in life in the midst of death." -- James Baldwin

"Simultaneously touching and comic" -- The New York Times

"It is a heroic and beautiful book." -- Clevland Plain Dealer

"Maya Angelou is a natural writer with an inordinate sense of life and she has written and exceptional autobiographical narrative... a beautiful book -- an unconditionally involving memoir for our time or any time." -- The Kirkus Reviews


Review
"This testimony from a black sister marks the beginning of a new era in the minds and hearts of all black men and women... I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, liberates the reader into life simply because Maya Angelou confronts her own life with such a moving wonder, such a luminous dignity. I have no words for this achievement, but I know that not since the days of my childhood, when the people in books were more real than the people one saw every day, have I found myself so moved... Her portrait is a biblical study in life in the midst of death." -- James Baldwin "Simultaneously touching and comic" -- The New York Times"It is a heroic and beautiful book." -- Clevland Plain Dealer"Maya Angelou is a natural writer with an inordinate sense of life and she has written and exceptional autobiographical narrative... a beautiful book -- an unconditionally involving memoir for our time or any time." -- The Kirkus Reviews


Book Description
A phenomenal #1 bestseller that has appeared on the New York Times bestseller list for nearly three years, this memoir traces Maya Angelou's childhood in a small, rural community during the 1930s. Filled with images and recollections that point to the dignity and courage of black men and women,
Angelou paints a sometimes disquieting, but always affecting picture of the people--and the times--that touched her life.


Card catalog description
Includes a brief biography of Maya Angelou, thematic and structural analysis of the work, critical views, and an index of themes and ideas.


From the Publisher
"This testimony from a black sister marks the beginning of a new era in the minds and hearts of all black men and women... I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, liberates the reader into life simply because Maya Angelou confronts her own life with such a moving wonder, such a luminous dignity. I have no words for this achievement, but I know that not since the days of my childhood, when the people in books were more real than the people one saw every day, have I found myself so moved... Her portrait is a biblical study in life in the midst of death." -- James Baldwin "Simultaneously touching and comic" -- The New York Times"It is a heroic and beautiful book." -- Clevland Plain Dealer"Maya Angelou is a natural writer with an inordinate sense of life and she has written and exceptional autobiographical narrative... a beautiful book -- an unconditionally involving memoir for our time or any time." -- The Kirkus Reviews


From the Inside Flap
A phenomenal #1 bestseller that has appeared on the New York Times bestseller list for nearly three years, this memoir traces Maya Angelou's childhood in a small, rural community during the 1930s.  Filled with images and recollections that point to the dignity and courage of black men and women,
Angelou paints a sometimes disquieting, but always affecting picture of the people--and the times--that touched her life.

ANNOTATION

Superbly told, with the poet's gift for language and observation, Angelou's autobiography of her childhood in Arkansas.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

An unforgettable memoir of growing up black in the 1930s and 1940s in a tiny Arkansas town where Angelou's grandmother's store was the heart of the community and white people seemed as strange as aliens from another planet. 2 cassettes.

FROM THE CRITICS

NY Times Book Review

The wisdom, rue and humor of her storytelling are borne on a lilting rhythm completely her own, the product of a born writer's senses nourished on black church singing and preaching, soft mother talk and salty street talk, and on literature: James Weldon Johnson, Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, Shakespeare and Gorki.

Publishers Weekly

As in Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now, famed poet and author Angelou (I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings) casts a keen eye inward and bares her soul in a slim volume of personal essays. This collection is narrower in scope than Angelou's earlier book and the sense of racial pride is stronger, more compelling. But all of her opinions are deeply rooted and most are conveyed with a combination of humility, personable intelligence and wit. Like a modern-day Kahlil Gibran, Angelou offers insights on a wide range of topics-Africa, aging, self-reflection, independence and the importance of understanding both the historical truth of the African American experience and the art that truth inspired. Women are a recurrent topic, and in "A Song to Sensuality," she writes of the misconceptions the young (her younger self included) have of aging. "They Came to Stay" is a particularly inspirational piece paying homage to black women: "Precious jewels all." Even Oprah Winfrey (to whom the previous collection was dedicated) serves as subject matter and is likened to "the desperate traveler who teaches us the most profound lesson and affords us the most exquisite thrills." In her final essay, Angelou uses the story of the prodigal son to remind readers of the value of solitude: "In the silence we listen to ourselves. Then we ask questions of ourselves. We describe ourselves to ourselves, and in the quietude we may even hear the voice of God."

Library Journal

If your originals of these two popular titles (LJ 9/1/78, LJ 3/15/70, respectively) have seen better days, these reprints offer affordable, high-quality replacements.

School Library Journal

Gr 2-4A young Ashanti boy invites readers to visit his West African village, famous for fine kente cloth, and to share his "magic"a masterful imagination. Artistic typesetting composition is accompanied by appealing color photos that bring the lyrical text into sharp focus. Kofi is an engaging scamp whose vivid "daydreams" that transport him to other places will speak to children everywhere and present them with a clear vision of his beloved West African world. Kofi's joy in his life is reflected in both text and pictorial content and will be an eye-opener to more materialistic children in technically developed environments. A winner.Patricia Manning, formerly at Eastchester Public Library, NY

AudioFile - Sharon Grover

Poet and writer Angelou eloquently reads excerpts from her autobiographical work. Her presence, felt through the reading, heightens the strength and beauty of her story. A male reader performs the narrative bridge, attempting to string the vignettes together. Listeners will long for a full text reading of this book. Since Angelou￯﾿ﾽs works appear on many reading lists, teachers can successfully use excerpts from Caged Bird for their classes. S.G. ￯﾿ﾽAudioFile, Portland, Maine Read all 6 "From The Critics" >

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

Oprah Winfrey

Maya Angelou's autobiography was the first book I ever read that made me feel my life as a colored girl growing up in Mississippi deserved validation. I loved it from the opening lines.  — Oprah Magazine

Black, bitter and beautiful, she speaks of our survival. — James Baldwin