I Know why the Caged Bird Sings (SparkNotes)
- Book Review,
by SparkNotes Editors
Amazon.com
In this first of five volumes of autobiography, poet 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."
From School Library Journal
Grade 10 Up. Two slender volumes that present critical information about popular classic titles. Bloom's introduction is followed by a short biographical sketch of each author and then a detailed thematic and structural analysis that summarizes the novel in question, chapter by chapter. Excerpts from critical essays constitute the major portion of each book. Some of the essays on The Sun center around character analysis, especially of the main female character, Brett Ashley. Other entries include comparisons to other works of literature including F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, and discussions of the symbolism, morality, and the work's historical context. Hemingway's own interpretation of the book and a letter from Fitzgerald to Hemingway about its flaws are excerpted. In the second book, the writings explore Angelou's use of language, her narrative technique, unique qualities of Caged Bird, comparisons with other works, and opposition to it. Motherhood, racial pride and self-hatred, rape, and honesty are among the issues explored. While similar material may be found in many other places, these series titles will be useful resources.?Lois McCulley, Wichita Falls High School, TXCopyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
If your originals of these two popular titles (LJ 9/1/78, LJ 3/15/70, respectively) have seen better days, these reprints offer affordable, high-quality replacements.Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From AudioFile
Poet and writer Angelou eloquently reads excerpts from her autobiographical work. Her presence, felt through the reading, heightens the strength and beauty of her story. A male reader performs the "narrative bridge," attempting to string the vignettes together. Listeners will long for a full text reading of this book. Since Angelou's works appear on many reading lists, teachers can successfully use excerpts from Caged Bird for their classes. S.G. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine
From 500 Great Books by Women; review by Vickie Sears
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is the brilliant, sonorous story of Maya Angelou's early life in Arkansas and California. At the age of five, Maya and her brother Bailey are taken to St. Louis to visit their mother, but after Maya is raped they are returned to the rock-hard loving care of their grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas. Maya stops speaking for five years but becomes a keen observer of everything around her, including the racial politics and divisions of her town. In a subtle maneuver between grandmother Henderson and Mrs. Bertha Flowers, "aristocrat of Black Stamps," Maya "got to know the lady who threw me my first life line." Mrs. Flowers tells the silent child: "Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with the shades of deeper meaning." So begins the reawakening of Maya's voice and her own music. She survives adolescence, breaks a racial barrier in seeking work, becomes a mother, and closes what is the beginning of a wondrous series of autobiographical works. A consummate poet, Maya Angelou creates phrases like "voices rubbed together," "Bailey looped his language around his tongue," and "knapsack of misery" as she writes of pain, self-discovery, and, most lovingly, of joy. -- For great reviews of books for girls, check out Let's Hear It for the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14.
Review
Praise for I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS
"I know that not since the days of my childhood, when people in books were more real than people one saw every day, have I found myself so moved."
-James Baldwin
Praise for GATHER TOGETHER IN MY NAME
"Gather Together in My Name is part of a select body of literature that includes The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Claude Brown's Manchild in the Promised Land and Ernest J. Gaines' The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. Maya Angelou regards the world and herself with intelligence and wit; she records the events of her life with style and grace."
-William McPherson, The Washington Post Book World
Praise for ALL GOD'S CHILDREN NEED TRAVELING SHOES
"This is a superb account by a great women who has embraced a difficult destiny with rare intelligence and infectious joie de vivre."
-The Boston Globe
Book Description
Get your "A" in gear!
They're today's most popular study guides-with everything you need to succeed in school. Written by Harvard students for students, since its inception SparkNotes™ has developed a loyal community of dedicated users and become a major education brand. Consumer demand has been so strong that the guides have expanded to over 150 titles. SparkNotes'™ motto is Smarter, Better, Faster because:
· They feature the most current ideas and themes, written by experts.
· They're easier to understand, because the same people who use them have also written them.
· The clear writing style and edited content enables students to read through the material quickly, saving valuable time.
And with everything covered--context; plot overview; character lists; themes, motifs, and symbols; summary and analysis, key facts; study questions and essay topics; and reviews and resources--you don't have to go anywhere else!
Card catalog description
Includes a brief biography of Maya Angelou, thematic and structural analysis of the work, critical views, and an index of themes and ideas.
From the Publisher
"This testimony from a black sister marks the beginning of a new era in the minds and hearts of all black men and women... I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, liberates the reader into life simply because Maya Angelou confronts her own life with 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 the people in books were more real than the people one saw every day, have I found myself so moved... Her portrait is a biblical study in life in the midst of death." -- James Baldwin "Simultaneously touching and comic" -- The New York Times"It is a heroic and beautiful book." -- Clevland Plain Dealer"Maya Angelou is a natural writer with an inordinate sense of life and she has written and exceptional autobiographical narrative... a beautiful book -- an unconditionally involving memoir for our time or any time." -- The Kirkus Reviews
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