I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya AngelouBook Review
Hi everyone I'm Rincey and this is Rincey
Reads. Today I'm going to be doing a book review on "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings"
by Maya Angelou. I read this book for Banned Books Week and
oh my gosh I loved it. If you didn't know this is the autobiography of Maya Angelou
and this is actually volume 1.
I believe there are four volumes out and they just chronicle
different periods of her life. And this one is basically from birth to about 16 or 17
years old. [Sigh]
This book. Man.
Like I'm not really going to do a plot synopsis cause you don't really
need to know much more than it's a story about Maya Angelou's life, but holy cow has she
been through a lot.And even just covering the first like 17 years like... What?
She speaks with such openness and honesty and just really truthful about the things
that have happened in her life and the way that they have affected her. The writing in
this book is just so beautiful. I have posted so many quotes from this book onto my Tumblr.
It was getting a little bit excessive.
But I also don't apologize for that because I
believe that it is completely worth it. I feel like she just has such good insight
into just society, the way that we live, the way that we think, the way other people view
us and how that affects us. This story mainly takes places in the 1930s
in the South, which was a really interesting perspective because she touches upon how like
the depression affected people differently, especially like white people versus black
people. And I feel like this is just such an interesting insight into the way of life
and the way things were during this time.
I really enjoyed reading this, especially
since I just finished reading "Brown Girl Dreaming" by Jacquiline Woodson and just having
just that fuller perspective on being a person of color in the South during this time period.
Although, obviously, "Brown Girl Dreaming"takes places about 20 or 30 years after this book
takes place. But just having that fuller perspective and that fuller idea.
I also just like the idea of just covering what people of color were doing during this
time period. Like I feel like you hear about black people during the time of like slavery
and then the Civil War happens, and then it sort of just like stops being a topic until
about the 1960s when the Civil Rights Movement takes place. Like that's how I feel like American
history is covered.
And so there is this whole time period like at the end of the 1800s and
at the beginning of the 1900s, so there's like a good like 100 years [laughs] or 50
years that doesn't get covered really. And so I feel like this is a really good insights
into that world and into that time period. This is a book that is frequently banned in
schools. Like the reasons why I picked it up is because I always like to pick one of
the books that are like so highly banned according to the American Library Association's website.
And this is in like the top 5 all the time, in terms of being banned from schools and
I kind of understand it in the sense of like this book is like raw.
It does not hold back.
Maya Angelou does not hold back. She tells you the truth about things. Like she is honest
about the violence and the assault and like sexual assault and just everything that happens
to her in this book. Like she is honest, and she is forthright and stuff like that freaks
people out.
And I completely understand why it would freak people out because, even me
reading it, there was one chapter where I. Read it and I had to like just put the book
down and just like take a break from it because it affected me. But I think that that's important.
Like it's supposed to affect you. Like topics like that are supposed to be disturbing, like
you shouldn't read about someone's sexual assault and be OK.
That's sort of why, like,
I hate it when books get banned because a lot of times it's because just like parents
being scared of what their kids are going to be exposed to, but at the same time, I
read this and I was like "you know what, if you're in high school, you probably should
read it and know exactly what it's like." You know, it could help prevent people from
doing this to someone else or it could help people deal with it if it has happened to
them, you know? So, I don't know. That's just my two cents. I'm not here to parent anyone's
kids because I don't even have children, so who am I to say anything? But I will say this:
if you haven't read anything by Maya Angelou, pick it up. Get something by her, start reading
her.
This is, again, like I said, the first of four. I will be continuing on because I
want to know so much more about her life. Like I know like bits and pieces about Maya
Angelou's life because, you know, she is a famous writer and I've done research or read
about her in the past, but I'm really excited to just see things from her point of view
and just to see where her journey takes her. So yeah, those are my quick thoughts on "I
Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" by Maya Angelou.
If you've read this book or if you've read
Maya Angelou's other books, feel free to leave a comment down below letting me know what
you guys thought of it. Or if you have any questions about the book, obviously leave
that down in the comment section as well. So yeah, that's all I have for now and thanks
for watching..
Reads. Today I'm going to be doing a book review on "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings"
by Maya Angelou. I read this book for Banned Books Week and
oh my gosh I loved it. If you didn't know this is the autobiography of Maya Angelou
and this is actually volume 1.
I believe there are four volumes out and they just chronicle
different periods of her life. And this one is basically from birth to about 16 or 17
years old. [Sigh]
This book. Man.
Like I'm not really going to do a plot synopsis cause you don't really
need to know much more than it's a story about Maya Angelou's life, but holy cow has she
been through a lot.And even just covering the first like 17 years like... What?
She speaks with such openness and honesty and just really truthful about the things
that have happened in her life and the way that they have affected her. The writing in
this book is just so beautiful. I have posted so many quotes from this book onto my Tumblr.
It was getting a little bit excessive.
But I also don't apologize for that because I
believe that it is completely worth it. I feel like she just has such good insight
into just society, the way that we live, the way that we think, the way other people view
us and how that affects us. This story mainly takes places in the 1930s
in the South, which was a really interesting perspective because she touches upon how like
the depression affected people differently, especially like white people versus black
people. And I feel like this is just such an interesting insight into the way of life
and the way things were during this time.
I really enjoyed reading this, especially
since I just finished reading "Brown Girl Dreaming" by Jacquiline Woodson and just having
just that fuller perspective on being a person of color in the South during this time period.
Although, obviously, "Brown Girl Dreaming"takes places about 20 or 30 years after this book
takes place. But just having that fuller perspective and that fuller idea.
I also just like the idea of just covering what people of color were doing during this
time period. Like I feel like you hear about black people during the time of like slavery
and then the Civil War happens, and then it sort of just like stops being a topic until
about the 1960s when the Civil Rights Movement takes place. Like that's how I feel like American
history is covered.
And so there is this whole time period like at the end of the 1800s and
at the beginning of the 1900s, so there's like a good like 100 years [laughs] or 50
years that doesn't get covered really. And so I feel like this is a really good insights
into that world and into that time period. This is a book that is frequently banned in
schools. Like the reasons why I picked it up is because I always like to pick one of
the books that are like so highly banned according to the American Library Association's website.
And this is in like the top 5 all the time, in terms of being banned from schools and
I kind of understand it in the sense of like this book is like raw.
It does not hold back.
Maya Angelou does not hold back. She tells you the truth about things. Like she is honest
about the violence and the assault and like sexual assault and just everything that happens
to her in this book. Like she is honest, and she is forthright and stuff like that freaks
people out.
And I completely understand why it would freak people out because, even me
reading it, there was one chapter where I. Read it and I had to like just put the book
down and just like take a break from it because it affected me. But I think that that's important.
Like it's supposed to affect you. Like topics like that are supposed to be disturbing, like
you shouldn't read about someone's sexual assault and be OK.
That's sort of why, like,
I hate it when books get banned because a lot of times it's because just like parents
being scared of what their kids are going to be exposed to, but at the same time, I
read this and I was like "you know what, if you're in high school, you probably should
read it and know exactly what it's like." You know, it could help prevent people from
doing this to someone else or it could help people deal with it if it has happened to
them, you know? So, I don't know. That's just my two cents. I'm not here to parent anyone's
kids because I don't even have children, so who am I to say anything? But I will say this:
if you haven't read anything by Maya Angelou, pick it up. Get something by her, start reading
her.
This is, again, like I said, the first of four. I will be continuing on because I
want to know so much more about her life. Like I know like bits and pieces about Maya
Angelou's life because, you know, she is a famous writer and I've done research or read
about her in the past, but I'm really excited to just see things from her point of view
and just to see where her journey takes her. So yeah, those are my quick thoughts on "I
Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" by Maya Angelou.
If you've read this book or if you've read
Maya Angelou's other books, feel free to leave a comment down below letting me know what
you guys thought of it. Or if you have any questions about the book, obviously leave
that down in the comment section as well. So yeah, that's all I have for now and thanks
for watching..
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