I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou was first published in 1968 and in the UK it was reprinted in 1988 by Virago. As I recall it was very popular back then, just about everyone seemed to be reading it – which just about guarantees that I won’t read a book, I hate to join the crowd I suppose. I’m thrawn (stubborn) that way!

However, when I watched that TV programme about Maya Angelou going on a pilgrimage to Robert Burns’s birthplace, and taking part in a Burns celebration, as well as visiting the famous Bachelors’ Club, I felt that I had to read this book now. Maya Angelou came across as such a lovely warm and funny person, it was time to catch up with her writing. This is the first in her series of seven autobiographies and I’ve already requested the next two in the series from the library.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is of course about the first 16 years of Maya’s life as a black child growing up in America’s south in the 1930s, mainly Alabama. Life was tough and traumatic but her upbringing by strong women in the shape of her grandmother and mother must have gone a long way to shaping the successful woman that she eventually became.