Ik weet waarom gekooide vogels zingen (1969)

Inspiring, one of a kind. ( )

Listening to the audio version, read by the author herself, made this extra powerful. What a life, what a woman she was. ( )

The author had a lot of interesting, painful, or valuable experience as a child and a teenager growing up in the 1940s. Reading about her early life helped me understand that time in the U.S. better. The plight of black people is unjust and tragic in both rural Arkansas as well as urban San Francisco. In the former racism overwhelms them, whereas in the latter they are caught in a lifestyle of violence and immorality. The author's grandmother, uncle, brother, mother, and father were vividly described. The grandmother was quite a character!

But the author herself and her personality remains a mystery to me as a reader. I don't understand most of her feelings nor the decisions she made, despite reading pages and pages of her thoughts and observations. ( )

Beautifully written and moving memoir. There are brutal moments and there is also love and joy. ( )

To understand a person, I think understanding the person’s thoughts and experiences growing up are critical. I’ve learned so much about Maya Angelou but also, I suspect, the same can be said of the vast majority of poor young black girls raised in the south (as Oprah confirmed in her foreword). It was brutally honest and eye-opening. I understand why it’s a classic. I’m so glad I finally read it after being so long on my tbr list. ( )