I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
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Web ID: 11772799Review for "I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings"
This book has fiction not in any way I've read before. It is written from the first-person view and tells the story of a black girl that was sent to her grandma. She had treated her grandma just as her real mom. The story follows her experiences going to church and having a pastor out of state come to the church every once in a while, he would come and visit. Every time he came she and her brother would make fun of him and try to make the same voice as him. This was so funny that she couldn't stop laughing because of how spot-on he was. I love this book because it connects fiction but makes it sound like a true story. With the story having truth to the time the story takes place in, it shows the struggles of being a person of color and the limitations that come with it. I love this book because it isn't like any other book i've read before. It is a story that doesn't do anything special but that makes it unique. It doesn't go for anything out of place and focuses on a time period of the county’s history and brings light to it. I like the fact that it's an autobiography makes it so much better because she tells her feelings and what it feels like and all the emotions. It also shows what you feel when you move to a different place and how you adjust to it.
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Powerful & Poignant
Maya Angelou was a gift to this world and this book is proof of that.
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Full of her experiences at a young age
This is a book that I have always wanted to read, having read some of Maya Angelou's poems as well as seeing her words quoted extensively on Facebook. I didn't know the specifics of her life, only that she was an esteemed writer and activist and perceived as a woman of great wisdom and sense. Reading the memoirs of her early life does perhaps not give you detailed information of her activism but it does show how the seeds are sown. Growing up with her grandmother "Momma" in the South is presented as both terrifying and comforting, the terror provided by the racism, ever prevalent and the comfort from the presence of her family, especially Momma and Maya's brother, Bailey. There are incidents described here that make me wonder what world it is that we live in, such as, where men have to hide in vegetable boxes to ensure that they don't get murdered before the end of the night for a crime that someone else committed, just because of the colour of their skin. Angelou is an entertaining narrator and the way that she describes her life is rippled with humour and intelligence. Despite the fact that she was sent away to live with her grandmother, there is no rancour towards her parents. In fact, she relates most things with a detachment, an analysis and is very good at conveying the sometimes strange ways that children interpret what is happening to them. Like all great memoir writers, it feels true; a representation of their life as they remember it, warts and all. There is a lot of racism presented in this book and none of it is really easy to read about, as you would expect. Angelou's narrative is a picture of what she knew as a child growing up and records experiences with her family as well as society as a whole. What you do get from it is an idea of how she has become strengthened by the life she has led and an acceptance that she wouldn't have become the person she was unless she had come through all that was thrown at her. There is a great quote at the end of chapter 34 which has great power and sent chills down my spine when I read it and which needs to be read in order to fully understand this formidable woman. Definitely worth reading.
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