Read by the author.

"Maya Angelou reads aloud from her unforgettable memoir of growing up black in the 1930s and 1940s. She was born Marguerite, but her brother Bailey nicknamed her Maya. As children, Maya and Bailey were sent to live with their grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas. Their early world revolved around this remarkable woman and the store she ran for the black community. Amidst the joys of her childhood, the awful, unfathomable mystery of prejudice entered her world. Then violence, too, intruded upon Maya's world, when a visit to her mother ended in tragedy--rape. Thereafter, she refused to speak, except to the person closest to her, Bailey." --container.