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Loading... I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (original 1969; edition 1983)by Maya Angelou
Work InformationI Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou (1969)
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She kinda just talks about little things she would do as a kid growing up. Makes me wonder if she smoked weed? And she starts to write these big paragraphs towards the end of the book. I don't have much interest in the things I do. She kinda had a repressed childhood high in the racist South and it kinda waned and became bored & weird once she attended High School in San Francisco. It almost kinda reminds me of my grown upbringing but 60 years later? "Its a Small World After All":) It's not really quite a journal but more like message board postings of little anecdotes the style she wrote it in like she has her own forum. A classic in American literature, one I first read years ago as a freshman in high school. I remember appreciating it then, but thinking it was a bit boring (a 14-year-old's opinion, on a book being taught in high school English class). Re-reading gave me a much better appreciation of it, and of Angelou as a writer. The story meanders a bit, but ultimately heads us in a single direction. And during that meandering Angelou shows us what an exceptional writer she is and her ability to write different styles of story. (One of the chapters is basically a ghost story.) As I got towards the end of the book, I began to see what 14-year-old me was thinking, in that it slows down a bit, and it took me a while to get through the last 100 pages. But overall a really good book by an American icon. Belongs to SeriesIs contained inHas the adaptationIs abridged inHas as a studyHas as a commentary on the textHas as a student's study guideHas as a teacher's guideAwardsDistinctionsNotable Lists
References to this work on external resources. Wikipedia in English (10)Biography & Autobiography.
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HTML:Here is a book as joyous and painful, as mysterious and memorable, as childhood itself. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings captures the longing of lonely children, the brute insult of bigotry, and the wonder of words that can make the world right. Maya Angelou’s debut memoir is a modern American classic beloved worldwide. Sent by their mother to live with their devout, self-sufficient grandmother in a small Southern town, Maya and her brother, Bailey, endure the ache of abandonment and the prejudice of the local “powhitetrash.” At eight years old and back at her mother’s side in St. Louis, Maya is attacked by a man many times her age—and has to live with the consequences for a lifetime. Years later, in San Francisco, Maya learns that love for herself, the kindness of others, her own strong spirit, and the ideas of great authors (“I met and fell in love with William Shakespeare”) will allow her to be free instead of imprisoned. Poetic and powerful, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings will touch hearts and change minds for as long as people read. “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.”—James Baldwin. No library descriptions found.
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)818.54092Literature English (North America) Authors, American and American miscellany 20th Century 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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Well-written but a little too rambling and untethered to any kind of compelling story. As it’s not a story, but a person remembering their life, in their own words, I guess that is to be expected. ( )