BOOK REVIEW

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Book Review

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is a novel written by Maya Angelou. Maya Angelou herself is an American author, actress, screen-writer, poet and a civil activist. Besides that, she was the first black San Francisco cable conductor. Maya Angelou was born in April 4, 1928 is St. Louis, Missouri. She spent her childhood in Stamps, Arkansas. Maya Angelou already wrote thirty six books during her lifetime. Maya Angelou died on 28 May 2014 due of her poor health. 

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sing is an autobiography that is published on 1969. The book itself is the first from seven volume books. Back then, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings was banned from reading lists in many schools. But, as the time goes by the book itself has been translated into seventeen languages and sold more than one million copies and already allowed to be appear on high school and college reading lists.

The book is introduced with the narration how Maya Angelou spent her childhood. She spent her childhood with her big brother, Bailey, at their grandma’s house, which they called her Momma, at Arkansas due to their parents’ divorce. The plot of the story continues when Maya starts growing up, and being invited to their mother. At that time, Maya’s mother had a boyfriend. During ‘the meeting’ with her mother, she was being molested by her mother’s boyfriend.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sing is based on Maya Angelou’s experience on sexual assault during her early life and how she and her brother endure the ache of abandonment prejudice. It also shows the transformation of how Maya overcome her trauma and racism that she got. ‘The accident’ itself has made Maya Angelou mute for almost five years. The book of the title is inspired from Paul Laurence’s poem, Sympathy. The phrase of ‘caged bird’ indicates that even though a caged bird never experience freedom, deep down that bird know that it was created to be free. What the bird felt is something that Maya Angelou felt at that time.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is nominated for a National Book Award in 1970 and labeled by a reviewer named Wanda Coleman as Maya Angelou’s magnum opus. The book itself is worth to read because it would open the reader’s mind that what our action do towards other person will have impact on that person life. But the book will be hard to understand, readers may need to read slowly and need some time or even repeat to read the book in order to understand the content. Some people also may find the content of the book annoying because there are some explicit content, including sexual assault.