This is not a story of a poor black girl from the wrong side of the tracks making it despite everything.

The book was about two people, Maya Angelou who apart from a dreadful incident of rape by her mother's husband (scarcely mentioned in the book) had not lived a hard life by any means. I wonder if Maya Angelou's power with words isn't waning with age and her delight in herself, always evident in her many autobiographical books, isn't increasing? I think what happened was that the editor who abridged the book for five episodes of 15 minutes each was a genius at picking out only the unique and wonderful scenes and leaving out the more boring reminiscences. I could see this book was destined for my list of favourite books.

I just had to read the whole book in print. I've listened to the abridged version of this. In Mom & Me & Mom, Angelou dramatizes her years reconciling with the mother she preferred to simply call “Lady,” revealing the profound moments that shifted the balance of love and respect between them.ĭelving into one of her life’s most rich, rewarding, and fraught relationships, Mom & Me & Mom explores the healing and love that evolved between the two women over the course of their lives, the love that fostered Maya Angelou’s rise to the heights. The subsequent feelings of abandonment stayed with Angelou for years, but their reunion, a decade later, began a story that has never before been told. When her marriage began to crumble, Vivian famously sent three-year-old Maya and her older brother away from their California home to live with their grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas. For the first time, Angelou reveals the triumphs and struggles of being the daughter of Vivian Baxter, an indomitable spirit whose petite size belied her larger-than-life presence-a presence absent during much of Angelou’s early life.

Mom & me & mom by maya angelou