Het is 1944: de Duitsers hebben Frankrijk bezet, en de gallieerde invasie in Normandië is in volle gang. In het Pentagon in Washington ontdekt een ambtenaar dat van de vier zoons uit één gezin er drie aan het front zijn gesneuveld: hun moeder zal vandaag drie telegrammen tegelijk ontvangen. Onmiddellijk besluit een generaal op het Amerikaanse ministerie van Oorlog ervoor te zorgen dat mevrouw Ryan haar vierde zoon ongedeerd in haar armen zal kunnen sluiten.
A boy made for mischief, Tom constantly grieves his Aunt Polly with his cunning tricks to get out of school and to lead an idle life of swimming and larking by the banks of the Mississippi. His scrapes vary from whitewashing a fence to witnessing a murder and from running away to be a pirate to hunting by night for buried treasure - but each episode ends with Tom ingeniously on top, as the hero of the village and the envy of all the other boys.
Maya Angelou’s debut memoir is a modern American classic beloved worldwide. Her life story is told in the documentary film And Still I Rise, as seen on PBS’s American Masters. Here is a book as joyous and painful, as mysterious and memorable, as childhood itself. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings captures the longing of lonely children, the brute insult of bigotry, and the wonder of words that can make the world right. Maya Angelou’s debut memoir is a modern American classic beloved worldwide. Sent by their mother to live with their devout, self-sufficient grandmother in a small Southern town, Maya and her brother, Bailey, endure the ache of abandonment and the prejudice of the local “powhitetrash.” At eight years old and back at her mother’s side in St. Louis, Maya is attacked by a man many times her age—and has to live with the consequences for a lifetime. Years later, in San Francisco, Maya learns that love for herself, the kindness of others, her own strong spirit, and the ideas of great authors (“I met and fell in love with William Shakespeare”) will allow her to be free instead of imprisoned. Poetic and powerful, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings will touch hearts and change minds for as long as people read. “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings liberates the reader into life simply because Maya Angelou confronts her own life with such a moving wonder, such a luminous dignity.”—James Baldwin
