Skip to main content
PBS logo
 
 

Search - I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Author: Maya Angelou
Here is a book as joyous and painful, and 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 first memoir, published in 1969 is a modern American classic beloved worldwi...  more »
Info icon
ISBN-13: 9780812980028
ISBN-10: 0812980026
Publication Date: 4/21/2009
Pages: 304
Rating:
  • Currently 3.7/5 Stars.
 11

3.7 stars, based on 11 ratings
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Book Type: Paperback
Other Versions: Hardcover, Audio Cassette, Audio CD
Reviews: Member | Amazon | Write a Review

Top Member Book Reviews

sherrie824 avatar reviewed I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings on + 57 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 5
This is one of my all time favorites. It was a required reading in Jr. High and it affected me emotionally then. Now, as an adult at 47, I purchased it to read again. I still feel the emotional roller coaster over the hard and cruel life that Maya (Marguerite) faced as a child. But she managed to survive and master her emotions to become a strong independent woman very early in life. By sharing her life story she has become a shining beacon for others, to show no matter how down-trodden, hopeless, alone or abandoned you may feel, if you dig deep within yourself you have the power to endure, persevere, and overcome. She is an outstanding icon to women everywhere.
reviewed I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings on + 145 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 4
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."
reviewed I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings on + 117 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 3
A wonderfully written and insightful autobiography about a part of Angelou's life. Her spirit shines through and serves as a model to all who become acquainted with her.
Readnmachine avatar reviewed I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings on + 1465 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
First of Angelou's autobiographies, covering her childhood split between the rural home of her grandmother in Arkansas and the California big-city home of her mother. Angelou writes unsparingly of her childhood sexual assault and her adolescent doubts about her own sexuality. But the most luminous sections of the book deal with her reminiscences of the interconnected web of the black community at her grandmother's home, particularly their strong religious beliefs.
reviewed I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings on + 30 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
Maya presents the characters and story of this book through an interesting perspective. Very readable. The story makes a person reflect on their time growing up and its future ramifications.
Read All 65 Book Reviews of "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings"

Please Log in to Rate these Book Reviews

reviewed I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings on + 60 more book reviews
The first volume of the five volumes that make up the autobiographical work of one amazing and facinating woman, Maya Angelou.

James Baldwin probably said it best "I know that not since the days of my childhood, when people in books were more real than the people one saw every day, have I been so moved".

Truly a compelling look into a side of life many of us are completely unfamiliar with. Well done!
reviewed I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings on + 427 more book reviews
Meh!
reviewed I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings on + 15 more book reviews
I liked this book a lot,but was a little disappointed in the ending. Without giving anything away, it just seemed to come so abruptly. It seemed like there could have been more there. I haven't read any of her other books, so perhaps the last chapter continues in another book.... Nonetheless, it was a quick read and was entertaining. Her writing style was enjoyable.
reviewed I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings on
excellent book
reviewed I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings on + 2 more book reviews
So enjoyed--will be looking for more of her work!
reviewed I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings on
This book was alright, it reads pretty slowly and it's not a very exciting read. It's a good insight into her life, good if there is nothing much else to do.
reviewed I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings on + 20 more book reviews
beautiful and moving autobiography of Maya Angelou, in which the author discovers that you can find beauty in life, despite great hardship and sadness.
reviewed I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings on
Let me start out by saying that i love Maya Angelou as a person. I have watched her speak and i think she is an amazing woman but this book is boring. I had high expectations for this book because its considered such a great piece of American Literature but as i began to read it, i wondered why. I must admit, im gray when it comes to this book. There are some parts that bored me to death but there were some parts that i thought were really beautiful and insightful. I personally wouldn't want to read this book again but I am glad that i took the time this summer to read it.
reviewed I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings on + 9 more book reviews
Great book.
reviewed I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings on + 10 more book reviews
This is an old book.
From the cover - This testimony from a Black siste marks the beginning of a new era in the minds & hears & lives of all Balck men & women.... I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings liberates the reader into life simply because Maya Angelou confronts her own life w/ 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 people in books were more real than the peoplw one saw every day, have I found myself so moved... Her portrait is a Biblical study in the midst of death.
reviewed I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings on + 9 more book reviews
I thought it was a wonderful book and everyone should read it at least once.


Genres: