I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelou)

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Maya Angelou
Ballantine Books
Nonfiction, Autobiography
****+ (Good/Great)

DESCRIPTION: Long before she became known internationally for her poetry and civil rights activism (among other accomplishments), Maya Angelou was a young girl sent far away from her mother, to live in the segregated town of Stamps, Alabama with her grandmother and disabled uncle. Here, in Mama's store, with only her brother Bailey as confidant, she would learn lessons that would shape her later life.

REVIEW: I'm sufficiently ignorant and unsophisticated to only have a passing familiarity with Angelou and her works; this audiobook was another part of my admittedly-haphazard effort to patch over the innumerable knowledge holes in my brain. Given the direction of recent events, where books like this are being challenged and removed from too many public spaces (anyone who plays semantics Twister to pretend that's not actually "banning" books or throttling the spread of ideas can kindly find another book review blog to follow, thanks), I figured it was high time to try it. Displaying a poet's ability to deeply and vividly evoke a time and place and life, Angelou weaves stories of her childhood, stretching from Jim Crow Alabama to St. Louis and California as she and her brother move between homes and relatives. Along the way, she has memorable encounters with colorful characters, while also experiencing the dark, twisted legacy of racism and classism (and sexism) in their innumerable guises, plus some personal traumas. Alongside the pain and despair and rage, she also experiences moments of hope and solidarity and beauty, the many threads and experiences coming together as she grows up and begins to build a future for herself that challenges the boundaries others would put around her. It makes for an interesting, inspiring, if sometimes depressing and harsh, read... and the fact that so many in 2025 still actively seek to shut books like this away, along with the questions it forces one to ask of oneself and the things it forces one to see about the world around us, is all one needs to know about how far America has failed to progress since Angelou's youth.

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