Reviews with content warning for Sexual violence - I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

I have finally read I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou. And I have had another moment of rage at my white supremacist religious fundamentalist high school, for robbing me of the experience of reading masterpieces like this, and instead making me read subpar swill by the likes of Bob Jones, Sr. Would I have truly appreciated Angelou's work when I was in high school? Hard to say, but I would have been richer for it, regardless.

But I cannot undo the past, so instead I finally read the book now. It is beautiful. Transcendent. Angelou captures the day to day joys and sorrows of young Black children in the American south during Jim Crow. The characters she draws, of her grandmother Mama and her brother Bailey and her disabled uncle and her beautiful and charming mother and every other person in her young orbit are sharply lifelike, honest without being cruel or maudlin. Hers is the story of the irrepressible mind and the happy circumstances and staggering prejudices and hard work and familial love that helped bring her to her eventual successes and acclaim in life. Even with all the tragedy she faces, even with the breathtakingly horrifying trauma she experiences and the long lingering after effects of the trauma, her story shines. It is alive.

I tried reading Maya Angelou's second memoir a couple of years ago, but without the context of this first book, it made less sense, and I got distracted and never finished. I feel like now I need to go back and revisit that, and all the rest of Angelou's writing, to bask in the beauty of her writing, in her wry observations of the lives around her, and the hope that seems to filter through all her writing. (Also, to piss off all the "educators" who tried to indoctrinate me with their bigotry. But that's perhaps a less worthy reason.)

I listened to I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings on audio, narrated by Angelou herself, and I felt like it added so much to the story to hear it read in her rich voice. To know that she was intoning songs and lines exactly how she remembered them. I cannot recommend the audio version enough, if, like me, you somehow have not yet read this book. Spite the book bannings. Spite the racists. Read good literature. Learn Black history. it's a win/ win/ win/ win.

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brigitte's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny informative inspiring medium-paced

4.5

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oliverthegame's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

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