ABSTRACT
This work by Maya Angelou, famed African-American dancer, singer, writer, poet, director, and civil rights activist, is the first in a four-book autobiography.2 It recounts her childhood and adolescence, the divorce of her parents when she was 3, the move from one part of the country to another, from one relative to another, and ends at age 16 with the birth of an illegitimate son. It is not a pretty story. But it is a true one, told with humor, style, energy, and most of all compassion and understanding.
