Mom and Me and Mom (Angelou)

Book Reviews
Angelou is smart and gifted enough to write for any audience she pleases. Clearly, she chooses to write for readers as open, playful and straightforward as herself…Mom & Me & Mom is delivered with Angelou's trademark good humor and fierce optimism. If any resentments linger between these lines, if lives are partially revealed without all the bitter details exposed, well, that is part of Angelou's forgiving design. As an account of reconciliation, this little book is just revealing enough, and pretty irresistible.
Valerie Sayers - Washington Post


Mesmerizing.... Angelou has a way with words that can still dazzle us, and with her mother as a subject, Angelou has a near-perfect muse and mystery woman.
Essence


[The] latest, and most potent, of her serial autobiographies.... [a] tough-minded, tenderhearted addition to Angelou’s spectacular canon.
Elle
 

Written with her customary eloquence, Angelou’s latest focuses on her relationship with her mother, the fierce, beautiful, charismatic, and determined Vivian Baxter—dubbed “Lady” by the 13-year-old Angelou.... There are difficult times...as well as triumphs, such as Angelou’s job as the first African-American female streetcar conductor, obtained thanks to Baxter’s encouragement. The book follows in the episodic style of Angelou’s earlier volumes of autobiography, pulling the reader along effortlessly. The lessons and the love presented here will speak to those trying to make their way in the world. B&w photos
Publishers Weekly


[A] distinct addition to Angelou's autobiographical writings. When Angelou was three her parents separated and sent both Maya and her brother to live with their grandmother. When Angelou was reunited with her mother ten years later, the initial relationship was difficult, though eventually they formed a strong bond. Here Angelou writes about critical episodes from her life while giving attention to her mother's positive influence at various crossroads. —Stacy Russo, Santa Ana Coll. Lib., CA
Library Journal


In this loving recollection of a complicated relationship, Angelou for the first time details the mother-daughter journey to reconciliation and unwavering connection and support.... Angelou vividly portrays a spirited woman.... [A] remarkable and deeply revealing chronicle of love and healing.
Booklist


Angelou has given us the opportunity to read much of her life, but here she unveils her relationship with her mother for the first time. True to her style, the writing cuts to the chase with compression and simplicity, and there in the background is a calypso smoothness, flurries and showers of musicality between the moments of wickedness. And wickedness abounds, for Angelou had a knack for picking bad men. But the pivot of the book is her mother.... "[S]he was there with me. She had my back, supported me. This is the role of the mother….She stands between the known and the unknown." Strung through the narrative are intense episodes in Angelou's personal progress.... A tightly strung, finely tuned memoir about life with her mother.
Kirkus Reviews