"A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song."
- Maya Angelou
The first time I heard the name Maya Angelou, I was a freshman in high school: Young, impressionable, naïve, careless, yet moved by the woman. While doing group work in my English class, we were given a list of books to read and my group selected I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou. I have to admit that I hated reading anything having to do with school, but my English teacher made it fun because we got to chose what we wanted to do with the book.
First though, let me tell you a little about it. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is the autobiography of Angelou's early life. Angelou was born in St. Louis, Missouri on April 4, 1928, and when she was three years old, her parents divorced. At that time, Angelou was sent to live with her grandmother, along with her older brother Bailey, in Stamps, Arkansas. At the age of eight, Angelou confessed that her mother's boyfriend had molested her and when her mother's brothers found out, they beat the man to death. This incident left Angelou mute, for she believed the power of her words caused the death of a man.
Eventually Angelou was sent back to Stamps, Arkansas and began to speak again. Living in the south during the 1930s was not easy for a young black girl, and Angelou chronicles her life from the moment she was a child in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings to today in her latest and last autobiographical book, A Song Flung Up to Heaven.
- Maya Angelou
The first time I heard the name Maya Angelou, I was a freshman in high school: Young, impressionable, naïve, careless, yet moved by the woman. While doing group work in my English class, we were given a list of books to read and my group selected I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou. I have to admit that I hated reading anything having to do with school, but my English teacher made it fun because we got to chose what we wanted to do with the book. First though, let me tell you a little about it. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is the autobiography of Angelou's early life. Angelou was born in St. Louis, Missouri on April 4, 1928, and when she was three years old, her parents divorced. At that time, Angelou was sent to live with her grandmother, along with her older brother Bailey, in Stamps, Arkansas. At the age of eight, Angelou confessed that her mother's boyfriend had molested her and when her mother's brothers found out, they beat the man to death. This incident left Angelou mute, for she believed the power of her words caused the death of a man.
Eventually Angelou was sent back to Stamps, Arkansas and began to speak again. Living in the south during the 1930s was not easy for a young black girl, and Angelou chronicles her life from the moment she was a child in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings to today in her latest and last autobiographical book, A Song Flung Up to Heaven.
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