I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

By Maya Angelou,

Book cover of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Book description

Maya Angelou's seven volumes of autobiography are a testament to the talents and resilience of this extraordinary writer. Loving the world, she also knows its cruelty. As a Black woman she has known discrimination and extreme poverty, but also hope, joy,achievement and celebration. In this first volume of her six…

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Why read it?

11 authors picked I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

We all know the incomparable poet, writer, and speaker she became, but before that was her coming-of-age story. Raw and painful yet written with Maya Angelou's lyrical and insightful eye, this too was a book I started and could not put down.

Drawn into her world as a girl feeling imprisoned inside herself for terrible reasons, she finds that self-love and kindness and the world of words, books, poetry, and writing unlock the cage she was in.

As a woman, as a girl, I would never know the cruel racism she experienced, but her journey into art and its ability…

From Sephe's list on girls as they come of age.

Angelou’s words sat me in a comfy chair as if in a favorite movie theater as the lights dimmed.

The world unrolling before me enveloped me from the red dirt of Arkansas in the 1930s all the way to the California sun. Her prose read like poetry and led me into each space she inhabited, including the ones in her mind. She slowed down the moment and let me ponder—no sideways judgments or explanations.

Her experience of childhood sexual assault ripped through me as my own had. She didn’t shy away from the horrors or beauty of life as a…

Maya Angelou is a celebrated and brilliant writer. In her memoir she writes about identity and racism and what it was like being a Black girl growing up in the 1930s and 1940s South. And it’s pure poetry.

I read it back when I was about thirteen and it has stuck with me ever since. It’s the kind of book you can pick up and read a few pages of and feel more connected with humanity. I have never read anything as unflinchingly honest before.

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Book cover of Tap Dancing on Everest: A Young Doctor's Unlikely Adventure

Tap Dancing on Everest By Mimi Zieman,

Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.

The team attempts a new route up…

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is a 1969 autobiography by Maya Angelou that describes her coming of age as a black girl in the American South and then on to California.

At age sixteen, when she becomes a mother, to discovering her own voice as a writer and poet. Angelou is forced to face racism, extreme trauma, abuse, and poverty, but she also discovers the ability to love and finds the strength to liberate herself from these oppositional forces.

The title is from a poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar that expresses her longing for freedom. It is a…

This first memoir in what would become a canon of the life of a woman of extraordinary courage and talent introduced me while reading it in college to a writer who would be an example of what one can do with one’s life and how writing can be poetic, vivid, and unforgettable.

The beautiful creation of family, place and the pivotal role that silence can play in our lives remain in my memory as indelible imprints. Maya wrote about her grandmother’s pride and her mother’s love with unflinching truth and made every person in this memoir complex and complicated and…

When I first read I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings over several late nights under the covers when I was supposed to be asleep, I couldn’t let it go even when sleepiness overtook me.

This coming-of-age true story of the formidable Maya Angelou entertains, teaches, and compels. The young Maya’s story growing up with a grandmother and Uncle in the segregated South with a cool big brother and distant glamorous parents is history and entertainment.

I was a thoughtful, poetry-loving girl with a complex home situation and really identified with the same in young Maya whose life was vastly…

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Book cover of Honeymoon at Sea: How I Found Myself Living on a Small Boat

Honeymoon at Sea By Jennifer Silva Redmond,

When Jennifer Shea married Russel Redmond, they made a decision to spend their honeymoon at sea, sailing in Mexico. The voyage tested their new relationship, not just through rocky waters and unexpected weather, but in all the ways that living on a twenty-six-foot sailboat make one reconsider what's truly important.…

As a literature major I’ve always been fascinated by the conversation authors have with each other via their work, conversations that sometimes span decades or centuries.

I was immediately captivated by the title of Maya Angelou’s famous 1969 memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings because I recognized that Angelou was engaging in a conversation. The title comes from a poem called “Sympathy” written by African American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar in 1899.

Dunbar writes of the mystery of a bird who sings even while beating its wings bloody against the bars of its cage. Angelou answers Dunbar’s question…

As a teenager, reading Angelou’s autobiographical coming-of-age story woke me up to possibilities outside the small town where I grew up.

I realized that if young Maya could overcome the perils of rape and racism, then surely I could survive my own trials and become a strong female and a writer myself. Angelou taught me that writers should never fear the words that must find the page, even if those words are embarrassing or uncomfortable for others to read.

No one reveals characters and their motivation, nor family struggles and sacrifice, like Angelou does. She portrays the African American experience…

I first read this book in high school and it had a profound impact on me. This memoir of Angelou’s life is described as “a book as joyous and painful, as mysterious and memorable, as childhood itself.” I find myself returning to it again and again, especially when I am preparing to write something new. Angelou’s voice, her vulnerability, and her honesty inspired me as a 15-year-old and still feed my soul today. Reading her words feels like home.

From Adele's list on strong Southern women.

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Book cover of Who Is a Worthy Mother?: An Intimate History of Adoption

Who Is a Worthy Mother? By Rebecca Wellington,

I grew up thinking that being adopted didn’t matter. I was wrong. This book is my journey uncovering the significance and true history of adoption practices in America. Now, in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, the renewed debate over women’s reproductive rights places…

The reason I chose this book is because it serves as an inspiration for anyone who has experienced hurt and disappointment. This book spoke to my soul, I could identify with the feelings of hurt in my life that have caused me to crawl up into a tiny space and isolate myself from the world. I could also identify with feeling like there’s nobody in the world that can identify with the pain that one feels sometimes. The most important takeaway I gained from this book is that we all have hidden gifts inside of us that are waiting to…

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Book cover of Tap Dancing on Everest: A Young Doctor's Unlikely Adventure

Tap Dancing on Everest By Mimi Zieman,

Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.

The team attempts a new route up…

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