Awards-

• Audie Award Nominee
  Audio Publishers Association

Excerpts-

• From the book

  1
  Home
  
  I was born in St. Louis, Missouri, but from the age of three I grew up in Stamps, Arkansas, with my paternal grandmother, Annie Henderson, and my father’s brother, Uncle Willie, and my only sibling, my brother, Bailey.
  
  At thirteen I joined my mother in San Francisco. Later I studied in New York City. Throughout the years I have lived in Paris, Cairo, West Africa, and all over the United States.
  
  Those are facts, but facts, to a child, are merely words to memorize, “My name is Johnny Thomas. My address is 220 Center Street.” All facts, which have little to do with the child’s truth.
  
  My real growing up world, in Stamps, was a continual struggle against a condition of surrender. Surrender first to the grown up human beings who I saw every day, all black and all very, very large. Then submission to the idea that black people were inferior to white people, who I saw rarely.
  
  Without knowing why exactly, I did not believe that I was inferior to anyone except maybe my brother. I knew I was smart, but I also knew that Bailey was smarter, maybe because he reminded me often and even suggested that maybe he was the smartest person in the world. He came to that decision when he was nine years old.
  
  The South, in general, and Stamps, Arkansas, in particular had had hundreds of years’ experience in demoting even large adult blacks to psychological dwarfs. Poor white children had the license to address lauded and older blacks by their first names or by any names they could create.
  
  Thomas Wolfe warned in the title of America’s great novel that “You Can’t Go Home Again.” I enjoyed the book but I never agreed with the title. I believe that one can never leave home. I believe that one carries the shadows, the dreams, the fears and dragons of home under one’s skin, at the extreme corners of ones eyes and possibly in the gristle of the earlobe.
  
  Home is that youthful region where a child is the only real living inhabitant. Parents, siblings, and neighbors, are mysterious apparitions, who come, go, and do strange unfathomable things in and around the child, the region’s only enfranchised citizen.
  
  Geography, as such, has little meaning to the child observer. If one grows up in the Southwest, the desert and open skies are natural. New York, with the elevators and subway rumble and millions of people, and Southeast Florida with its palm trees and sun and beaches are to the children of those regions, the ways the outer world are, has been, and will always be. Since the child cannot control that environment, she has to find her own place, a region where only she lives and no one else can enter.
  
  I am convinced that most people do not grow up. We find parking spaces and honor our credit cards. We marry and dare to have children and call that growing up. I think what we do is mostly grow old. We carry accumulation of years in our bodies and on our faces, but generally our real selves, the children inside, are still innocent and shy as magnolias.
  
  We may act sophisticated and worldly but I believe we feel safest when we go inside ourselves and find home, a place where we belong and maybe the only place we really do.
  
  
  2
  Philanthropy
  
  To write about giving to a person who is naturally generous reminds me of a preacher passionately preaching to the already committed choir. I am encouraged to write on because I remember that from time to time, the choir does need to be uplifted and thanked for its commitment. Those voices need to be encouraged to sing again and again, with even more emotion.
  
  Each single American giver...

About the Author-

• Maya Angelou was raised in Stamps, Arkansas. In addition to her bestselling autobiographies, including I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and The Heart of a Woman, she wrote numerous volumes of poetry, among them Phenomenal Woman, And Still I Rise, On the Pulse of Morning, and Mother. Maya Angelou died in 2014.

Reviews-

• With the careful phrasing and emphatic pacing of a poet, Angelou offers her meditations on life to the many daughters she's never had--yet considers to be her extended family. Angelou's voice is deep and distinctive, yet familiar sounding, and her wide-ranging, often autobiographical reflections on life provide much food for thought. Listening, one imagines her picking her way, serenely, across a sometimes-stony but often unexpectedly delightful road. Whether she's reminiscing about family, race, intercultural embarrassment, or losing loved ones, Angelou is thoughtful but not preachy, wise but never heavy-handed. This collection of essays cuts across the genre, defying easy categorization. Part poem, part memoir (there's even a little song tucked in), the production, unified by Angelou's marvelously distinctive and original voice, is wholly delightful. J.C.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine
• With the careful phrasing and emphatic pacing of a poet, Angelou offers her meditations on life to the many daughters she's never had--yet considers to be her extended family. Angelou's voice is deep and distinctive, yet familiar sounding, and her wide-ranging, often autobiographical reflections on life provide much food for thought. Listening, one imagines her picking her way, serenely, across a sometimes-stony but often unexpectedly delightful road. Whether she's reminiscing about family, race, intercultural embarrassment, or losing loved ones, Angelou is thoughtful but not preachy, wise but never heavy-handed. This collection of essays cuts across the genre, defying easy categorization. Part poem, part memoir (there's even a little song tucked in), the production, unified by Angelou's marvelously distinctive and original voice, is wholly delightful. J.C.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award, 2009 Audies Finalist (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine
• 

  September 22, 2008
  From the mellifluous voice of a venerable American icon comes her first original collection of writing to be published in ten years, anecdotal vignettes drawn from a compelling life and written in Angelou's erudite prose. Beginning with her childhood, Angelou acknowledges her own inauguration into daughterhood in "Philanthropy," recalling the first time her mother called her "my daughter." Angelou becomes a mother herself at an early age, after a meaningless first sexual experience: "Nine months later I had a beautiful baby boy. The birth of my son caused me to develop enough courage to invent my life." Fearlessly sharing amusing, if somewhat embarrassing, moments in "Senegal," the mature Angelou is cosmopolitan but still capable of making a mistake: invited to a dinner party while visiting the African nation, Angelou becomes irritated that none of the guests will step on a lovely carpet laid out in the center of the room, so she takes it upon herself to cross the carpet, only to discover the carpet is a table cloth that had been laid out in honor of her visit. The wisdom in this slight volume feels light and familiar, but it's also earnest and offered with warmth.

• Baltimore Sun "It's a book to give to one's daughter, mother, son or father, but definitely one to be read and savored."
• Washington Post Book World "Sound advice, vivid memory and strong opinion . . . What is clear is that [Maya] Angelou is, all these years later, still a charmer, still speaking her mind."
• Kirkus Reviews "A slim volume packed with nourishing nuggets of wisdom . . . Overarching each brief chapter is the vital energy of a woman taking life's measure with every step."
• Fredericksburg Free Lance--Star "Written in Angelou's beautiful, poetic style, the essays feel like warm advice from a beloved aunt or grandmother, whose wisdom you know was earned."
• Rocky Mountain News "Spellbinding . . . Angelou delivers with her signature passion and fire. . . . Each [essay] delivers a powerful message."

Title Information+

• Publisher

  Books on Tape

• OverDrive Listen

  Release date:

Digital Rights Information+