Banned Books Week, Book 4

Title: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Author: Maya Angelou
Synopsis: An autobiographical account of Maya Angelou's childhood and teenaged years. There are detailed passages about the rape she suffered as a child, her teenage pregnancy, and the harsh realities of her life as she and her brother shuttled back and forth between her mother and grandmother.
Challenges: Citizens For Literary Standards in Schools have this to say about I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings:

The crude language includes many references and comparisons to urine, pee, farting, and defecation, as well as general profanity and racial slurs such as Goddammit, shit, bitch, ass, titties, niggers, jigs, spooks, whore, hell, dykes, bulldaggers, pecker, peckerwood, and "give me some trim". Sometimes the words are used as part of the actual conversation of the characters, but often, the words are used as Maya's personal choice of descriptive writing. "...the plump brown face had been deflated and patted flat like a cow's ordurous dropping" or "the cotton truck spilled the pickers out and roared out of the yard with a sound like a giant's fart." or "I cried and hollered, passed gas and urine." or "I decided I wouldn't pee on her if her heart was on fire." (Source)

My Thoughts: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is an autobiographical work of the early years of a woman who has, since then, become the first African-American female cable car conductor in San Francisco, a successful writer, activist, poet, actress and many other things. She is truly a remarkable woman who has lived a remarkable life.

And she started from nothing. Her account of her childhood is as gritty and difficult to read as her childhood itself must have been.

I read this book in my senior year of high school. Would I recommend it to anyone under age sixteen? Probably not. It's got mature themes and mature language. But I wouldn't outright try to ban it from a school library or reading program. The overall theme of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is about overcoming adversity to become remarkable. To make a difference in the world. Frankly, I think kids these days need to read this kind of book.