# I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

**Author:** Maya Angelou
**Lexile:** 1070L
**Grade range:** Grades 10–12
**Age range:** 15–18
**First published:** 1969
**Page count:** 289
**Genre:** Memoir
**ISBN-13:** `9780345514400`
**ISBN-10:** `0345514408`
**Canonical URL:** https://readinglist.school/book/i-know-why-the-caged-bird-sings
**License:** [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) — please credit ReadingList.school when citing.

## About this book

Angelou's first of seven autobiographies covers her childhood in Stamps, Arkansas, her traumas, and her emergence as a writer and performer. A frequent 10th- and 11th-grade American Literature assignment and one of the ALA's most challenged books of the past thirty years.

## Themes

- racism
- sexual trauma and recovery
- identity
- voice and silence
- resilience
- family

## Content notes

- child rape (central)
- racial violence
- racial slurs
- teen pregnancy

Common Sense Media age recommendation: 14+

## Where this book is assigned

### AP English Literature & Composition

- **recommended** · 11th grade — [source: AP Lit memoir representative text](https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-english-literature-and-composition)

### Common Core State Standards (ELA)

- **recommended** · 11th grade — [source: CCSS ELA Appendix B, grades 11-CCR informational text exemplar](https://achievethecore.org/page/2699)

## Banned / challenged record

Documented removals or formal challenges in at least one school district in 5 states: TX, FL, MO, VA, UT. Source: [PEN America's Index of School Book Bans](https://pen.org/banned-book-list/) 2022-2024.

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