Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Dream Keepers

2022; Volume: 49; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/lit.2022.0020

1542-4286

Ellen Donovan, Laura Dubek,

Themes in Literature Analysis

Dream Keepers Ellen Donovan and Laura Dubek When Langston Hughes made his literary debut in the pages of The Brownies Book and The Crisis in 1921, the nineteen-year-old could not have imagined the incredible impact he would have on generations of writers. This section contains profiles of artists of that next generation and their work for children and young adults. Drawing from existing scholarship scattered among various monographs, reference works, articles, reviews, and interviews, we present these biographical sketches alphabetically, without regard to whether the artist has been recognized as a writer for children or adults. Our intent is to prompt scholars and teachers of American literature, African American literature, and children's/YA literature to commit to a fully integrated canon where Black children, too, sing America. MAYA ANGELOU (1928–2014) Since its publication in 1970, Maya Angelou's first autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, has garnered praise and generated controversy. A Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) Best Book for Young Adults (1970) and a Coretta Scott King Honor Book (1971), Angelou's frank and lyrical accounting of her traumatic coming-of-age raises questions about appropriate content for young readers, content that often prompts book banning campaigns. The [End Page 524] American Library Association's (ALA) Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) has collected data on challenges to books since 1990. The reasons cited for challenging Caged Bird include offensive language, sexually explicit content, violence, and unsuited for age group. In an interview published in Journal of Reading, Joyce Graham asks Angelou to specify the appropriate age for Caged Bird, something the writer refuses to do. Angelou does, however, offer a response that suggests her faith in adolescents' ability to tackle tough subjects: "I think a young man or woman of 14 … by the age of 14 and certainly by 15, an American child should have read The Grapes of Wrath, Intruder in the Dust, Main Street, American Dilemma, Armies of the Night, The American Way of Death, Woman Warrior, and The Fire Next Time so that they will know what their country is made of" (quoted in Graham 1991, 409). James Baldwin, the author of the last text on Angelou's reading list, suggested the power of Angelou's work for both young and adult readers: "I have no words for this achievement, but I know that not since the days of my childhood, when people in books were more real than the people one saw every day, have I found myself so moved" (1970). Born Marguerite Annie Johnson in St. Louis, Missouri, Angelou spent most of her childhood with her grandmother, Annie Henderson, in Stamps, Arkansas. The child of divorced parents, she also spent time in St. Louis with her mother, Vivian Baxter. Baxter's boyfriend raped eight-year-old Maya, the poet who would grow up to pen "And Still I Rise" (1978) responding to her trauma by refusing to speak for five years. (Her uncles responded to her rape by murdering the rapist.) In Caged Bird, Angelou credits two women with providing her the stability and love she needed to thrive: her grandmother and Mrs. Flowers, a teacher in Stamps who gave her poetry to read and recite. Angelou spent her adolescence living in San Francisco with her mother. At age sixteen, one month after graduating from Mission High School, she gave birth to her son, Guy Johnson. In the six autobiographies that follow Caged Bird, Angelou chronicles a rich and full life of artistry and political activism. She married and divorced three times, the first marriage to Tosh Angelos (1949–1952), whose name she changed and made her own. From 1981 to her death in 2014, Angelou served as Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University. A prolific writer, Angelou produced autobiographies, poetry, picturebooks, and various media for young people. Her second autobiography, Gather Together in My Name (1974), focuses on her life from [End Page 525] age seventeen to nineteen. In the 1980s, she published Mrs. Flowers: A Moment of Friendship, illustrated by Etienne Delessert (1986); Maya Angelou: Poems (1986); and Now Sheba Sings the Song (1987), a response to drawings of Black women by...