Maya Angelou writes on her experience living in Southern rural then in Los Angeles and San Francisco, the book is a heartwarming yet tragic story of her life from birth to young adulthood. She grew in unstable home environment, moving between her grandmother, father, and mother with her brother Bailey. She was sexually molested by her mother's boyfriend at the age of eight that made her shut off from the world and spoke only to Bailey for years, until her teacher helped her come out of the silence after which she moved to California. She says, "If growing up is painful for the Southern Black g...

• Word Count: 649
• Approx Pages: 3
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

In this first of five volumes of autobiography, Maya Angelou tells the story of her life from age three, when her divorcing parents sent her and her brother to live with their maternal grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas, to age sixteen, when, reunited with her mother in San Francisco, she gave birth to her son. Thus her story begins with semi-orphanhood and ends with motherhood. Interpreting her quest for freedom and self-affirmation as representative of that of many African Americans and American women-especially black American women-she presents incidents from her life that illustrate condition...

• Word Count: 1226
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate