Letter to my Daughter
Maya Angelou shares her path to living well and with meaning in this absorbing book of personal essays.
Dedicated to the daughter she never had but sees all around her, Letter to My Daughter transcends genres and categories: guidebook, memoir, poetry, and pure delight.
Here in short spellbinding essays are glimpses of the tumultuous life that led Angelou to an exalted place in American letters and taught her lessons in compassion and fortitude: how she was brought up by her indomitable grandmother in segregated Arkansas, taken in at thirteen by her more worldly and less religious mother, and grew to be an awkward, six-foot-tall teenager whose first experience of loveless sex paradoxically left her with her greatest gift, a son.
Whether she is recalling such lost friends as Coretta Scott King and Ossie Davis, extolling honesty, decrying vulgarity, explaining why becoming a Christian is a “lifelong endeavor,” or simply singing the praises of a meal of red rice–Maya Angelou writes from the heart to millions of women she considers her extended family.
Source: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/3929/letter-to-my-daughter-by-maya-angelou/
Key Words/Themes
Female Empowerment, Identity and Life Decisions, Discrimination, Racism and Social Justice, Spirituality, Self-acceptance, Life as a Single Mother.
Book Review and Recommended Use in Classroom
Angelou has a narrative style that is easy to read. The individual texts are not very long and each of them covers one theme, encounter or situation in her life. As autobiographical accounts of the life of a Black woman in the 20th century they offer insights and invite the reader to get a glimpse of challenging situations in a strong woman’s life.
Language wise the texts are not very difficult; it is rather the philosophical or reflective style that requires some maturity in the reader. So I would say it is something for classes 12 / 13 - maybe as a voluntary reading project or used in parts in a wider context.
(Ulrike, April 2025)
Sensitive Content
None
About the Author
Maya Angelou was born Marguerite Annie Johnson in 1928 in St. Louis, Missouri, and raised in both St. Louis and the segregated town of Stamps, Arkansas, where she experienced racism and trauma that would later shape her literary voice. After a difficult childhood—including years of silence following sexual abuse—she found healing through literature and the arts. She lived a richly varied life before becoming a writer, working as a dancer, singer, actress, and civil rights activist, living in Ghana and Egypt, and engaging with figures such as Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Her breakthrough came with the publication of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), the first of seven autobiographies that chronicle her life with candor, lyricism, and insight into race, identity, and resilience. Angelou became an iconic voice in American literature, celebrated for her powerful storytelling and unwavering commitment to social justice.
