I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Rating:
Summary: an insite into life in the 1940's
Review: "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," by Marguerite Johnson (who now calls herself "Maya Angelou", and is also known by the street name of "Ghostface Killer Lady Dirty Bastard"), is the first volume in this author's unfortunately predictable series of autobiographical narratives. Many who consider blaming white folk for the failings of their own family or own people will take comfort in calling this self-congratulatory, fault-denying writing a "contemporary classic of African-American literature". In fact, the astute reader will easily recognize the familiar three headed monster that, to this day, preys on people in the black community: Blaming others, Dangerous and uneducated culture, and Dysfunctional family values:

1- Blaming others: Angelou bemoans endlessly of the bruising effects of racism and segregation in America, but gives a pass to the horrific and brutal treatment that the black man serves on his peers. For example, at her eighth grade graduation, a white speaker talks to her in a condescending tone, her white boss calls her Mary, knowing full-well her name (was it Maya, or Marguerite, or yet another alias picked for the day?), and the white media fails to publicly recognize an African American as a hero. Meanwhile, her homies in the street are "keeping it real", being "gangster to the core" by selling drugs to the little ones, raping their daughters, and shooting their own in drive-bys. I am sure that some of these victims would have much preferred a "condescending tone" rather than a [...]. She feels her people are limited in what they can do to better themselves, although every other racial group is taking or has taken the needed steps to pull themselves out of the ghetto and into graduate schools. Unfortunately, the guilt-ridden, shortsighted, white liberal public has enabled and encouraged this culture-destroying attitude by accepting undue blame, and by not only failing to address and correct the perpetrators (street activist and so called "preachers") of this activity, but by also attacking those who are brave enough to do so by calling them "racist" and "insensitive". As a result, many of her people have developed a misplaced and delusional sense of rage toward all white people.

2- Dangerous and uneducated culture: Again, Angelou spends very little time holding the perpetrators living within her own culture responsible for any of the disimal living conditions she and the rest of her community must endure, but feels the need to blame and victimize those of other cultures who choose to live in a more civilized custom and resist including irresponsible and dangerous people into their own communities. She thinks whiteness is a desirable trait, not realizing that it is `responsibility' and `accountability' she envies, traits any culture can embrace if they so choose. She believes that the favored color takes certain things for granted: upward-mobility, respect and lawfulness, not appreciating the these are things that are certainly not taken for granted, but strived for through hard work and study. In fact the blacks that do recognize and act on this are ridiculed as "Uncle Toms", victimized for not `keeping it real', and sometimes even killed by other blacks for `acting white' (see the case in Greenville, South Carolina).

3- Dysfunctional family values: This is the last factor in contributing to her poverty and diseased-culture, and Ms. Angelou does spend some time referring to it, but does not offer it up as a contributor to the ills that plague the African-American existence. After reading about her parents' separation, the only justification that she is sent away is that her parents "lived more of a city life". There is, in fact, nothing wrong with city living, and this excuse is a direct insult to city dwellers that are doing a fine job of raising their children. I suspect that the problem really lay with parents that did not care about their children. The problem may also have something to do with a brutal sexual assault from a trusted family friend when she was a child. In fact, child neglect and child rape have never been found to be caused by racism and segregation in America.

Indeed, after reading this book, one discovers that Maya Angelou does not know why the caged bird sings at all, for the caged bird is not imprisoned by his fellow birds, nor does the bird blame the frog for his problems.

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining and eye opening
Review: As a child, Maya encounters the bruising effects of racism and segregation in America. She lives in Stamps, Arkansas, a town segregated to the point that as a young girl, Maya isn't sure that white people even exist.

As she grows up, her confrontations with racism become more blatant and more personal. For instance, at her eighth grade graduation, a white speaker talks to her in a condescending tone, her white boss calls her Mary, knowing full-well her name. And perhaps the most public example is when a white dentist refuses to provide her service. Even worse, Maya sees how well white girls are treated. She begins to believe that the only way to be treated well is to be beautiful and the only way to be beautiful is to be a blonde-haired, paled-skinned, blue-eyed darling girl.

This story is rich with character as Maya is surrounded by those who live under the rules of the South. The feelings portrayed are raw, and the role of a child's imagination is poignant-magnificently done. She manages to bring out aspects beyond those of a young girl's private thoughts through real events like Joe Louis's world championship boxing match. A clear victory for blacks in the eyes of the black community, but an example of the white man's media failing to publicly recognized an African American as a hero. Louis' victory also shows the desperate, lonely nature of the black community's hope for vindication.

Maya begins to learn that she and her family are meant to be held back by a fearful public. Limited in what they can do to better themselves-demeaned for even trying. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, is a story about the pressures of living in a thoroughly racist society and how profoundly such a society shapes the character of an individual and the dynamics of a family. It is a story of how one girl strived to surmount such pressures.

Rating:
Summary: Misleading Warnings
Review: Going into my freshman year of high school and my first honors english class I was told by my church to beware of the evil book they would force me to read-- I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

It was protested because of the vivid picture painted of her sexual abuse.

After reading it I can only shake my head at the people who warned me of this book. By refusing to read it because of something horrible happening to someone you fail to really realise that things of that nature happen.

Reading this book was an eyeopener to me-- to understand just where people like Maya come from. I was riveted throughout this book. Easily it is one of the better books I've read.

Rating:
Summary: I know why.... this is a beautiful book.
Review: I know why the caged bird sings is a poignant childhood tale which tells the story of a troubled upbringing in the surreal world that is Southern America in the 1930's. This is a beautiful book, which addresses many touching subjects, such as displacement, community, religion and family. All of these subjects are put across in a touching, yet deep manner and allows the audience to really "get under" Angelou's skin. Everyone should read this book once in their lives, as everyone should read the tale of how she beat oppression, and how she grew to be the amazing and strong woman she grew to be.

Rating:
Summary: interesting
Review: I read the book " I know why the caged birds sing" by Maya Angelou. It was one of the many choices that caught my attention in which my teacher recommended to the class. While reading this novel the situations became interesting and kept me wanting to read more. This novel is about a black little girl that struggles growing up in a society of racism and constant conflict. This little girl doesn't have a steady home she is always moving place to place because her parents were divorced and lived more of a city life. I personally recommend this novel to other readers because this is a novel that I feel everyone can understand and comprehend .

Rating:
Summary: Angelou is a master of 'mother-wit'...
Review: I was raised, less than 75 miles from where Maya Angelou was born, so I recognize 'mother-wit' when I hear it. I Know Why the Caged Bird sings, is filled with the deep philosophical phrases and ideas common to wise old women of the south. Hardship, sharpens one's view, produces an economy of words that cut straight to the truth of a matter as does Caged Bird, in its flowing prose wrapped in 'mother-wit'.
The tragedy of child neglect, racism and child rape are presented in Caged Bird against the strengh of Maya's family upbringing by her proud Grandmother. You can feel that family strength rise up and save Maya, when she became mute after the mysterious 'sudden death' of her rapist. Maya felt the words of her own mouth killed a man, so she resolved to never speak again. Within this powerful decision of a small child, the beginnings of a great poet developed, as she wrote words on a tablet that she carried with her, instead of speaking. As our Maya turned in to herself for comfort, something was triggered within her, an awareness and insight into the beauty of words.
Reading Caged Bird gives you more than a story, it gives you insight into the birth of one of the greatest poets of our time: Maya Angelou.

Rating:
Summary: Surprisingly Boring
Review: I'm sorry, but I found this book to be boring and hard to believe. Much of the time Maya appears to be over-stating her point and the events surrounding her life. I did not finish the book.

I know that Maya is a revered poet, as she should be. But this book does not do her justice.

Rating:
Summary: I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings
Review: Maya Angelou's autobiographical narrative, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, was a major eye-opener for me, a high school sophomore. It frankly depicts her life as a southern, black child. The story begins as she is sent, at the age of four, to live with her strict and very religious grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas. After she leaves to go live with her mother in St. Louis, she bluntly describes the events in which she was molested and raped by her mother's live-in boyfriend when she was eight. The novel continues to include all of the important events in her early life such as: her move back to Stamps, the move to California, the beginning of World War II, and giving birth to her son at age sixteen. Throughout the novel she constantly compares herself to her brother, whom she considers beautiful. The book mentions many popular novels including The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Jane Eyre and also the authors Edgar Allan Poe and William Shakespeare. I enjoyed this book because it made me apprciate my life as a middle-class, white girl.

Rating:
Summary: literary brilliance
Review: Ms. Angelou writes with literary brilliance, and "I Know Why The caged Bird Sings" is no exception. Part poetic, part memoir...she brings her life in to full view for all to see, read and feel. She has triumphed.and isn't afraid to tell about it. I rate this highly with books such as "Nighmares Echo" and "The Color Purple" among other wonderful memoirs written in the past year or so.

Rating:
Summary: Machiavellian
Review: Not a man to judge others by their Christian names, I opened this book expelling my prejudices and bias. I admit, however, that my history has caught up to me, and I will be unable to complete the undertaking. It is now obvious to me that the author, like the central character of the novel, is an insidious rebel and a Negress who will never belong here. Shut your mind - and your soul - from this treason.