About the Author
Maya Angelou was born Marguerite Johnson on April 4, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri, to Bailey and Vivian Baxter Johnson. When she was three years […]
Month: December 2008
Setting
The book begins in 1931 with Maya’s earliest childhood memories and proceeds through the end of World War II. Events of great social significance-from the […]
Themes and Characters
Angelou shapes the narrative of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings with two traditional themes of autobiography: the triumph over obstacles and the search […]
Literary Qualities
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings begins as a narrative of a young black girl growing up in the care of her grandmother in […]
Social Sensitivity
Segregation was so complete in the 1930s “that most black children didn’t really absolutely know what whites looked like,” and Angelou herself “never remembers that […]
Topics for Discussion
1. What does Maya think about her grandmother’s religious beliefs? Why is the church so important to Momma? 2. Why is the next door neighbor, […]
Ideas for Reports and Papers
1. Research Joe Louis’s rise to prominence in the boxing world, and the difficulties he faced as the first black champion prize fighter. 2. Angelou […]
Related Titles and Adaptations
The success of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings encouraged Angelou and her publishers to publish four additional autobiographical novels that cover the years […]
About the Author
Robert Cormier was born in Leominster, Massachusetts, on January 17, 1925. As a member of a large, working-class family during the Great Depression, he came […]