A Song Flung Up to Heaven (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780375507472)

The culmination of a unique achievement in modern American literature: the six volumes of autobiography that began more than thirty years ago with the appearance of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

A Song Flung Up to Heaven opens as Maya Angelou returns from Africa to the United States to work with Malcolm X. But first she has to journey to California to be reunited with her mother and brother. No sooner does she arrive there than she learns that Malcolm X has been assassinated.

Devastated, she tries to put her life back together, working on the stage in local theaters and even conducting a door-to-door survey in Watts. Then Watts explodes in violence, a riot she describes firsthand.

Subsequently, on a trip to New York, she meets Martin Luther King, Jr., who asks her to become his coordinator in the North, and she visits black churches all over America to help support King's Poor People's March.

But once again tragedy strikes. King is assassinated, and this time Angelou completely withdraws from the world, unable to deal with this horrible event. Finally, James Baldwin forces her out of isolation and insists that she accompany him to a dinner party--where the idea for writing I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is born. In fact, A Song Flung Up to Heaven ends as Maya Angelou begins to write the first sentences of Caged Bird.

Author: Maya Angelou
ISBN-10: 0375507477
ISBN-13: 9780375507472
Publisher: Random House
Language: English
Published: 04/02/2002
Pages: 212
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 0.80lbs
Size: 8.56h x 5.88w x 0.81d

Accelerated Reader:
Reading Level: 5.9
Point Value: 6
Interest Level: Upper Grade
Quiz #/Name: 69583 / Song Flung Up to Heaven


Review Citation(s):
Booklist 12/15/2001 pg. 712
Library Journal Prepub Alert 12/01/2001 pg. 92
Kirkus Reviews 01/01/2002 pg. 25
Booklist 01/01/2002 pg. 774
Publishers Weekly 02/04/2002 pg. 61
Black Issues Book Review 03/01/2002 pg. 56
Library Journal 03/15/2002 pg. 79
People Weekly 05/06/2002 pg. 56
School Library Journal 07/01/2002 pg. 144