All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes Signed Edition

by Maya Angelou

Paper Book, 1986

Status

Available

Call number

PS3551.N464 Z463

Series

Maya Angelou's Autobiographies (5)

Genres

Biography & Memoir

Biography

Publication

Franklin Library (1986), Edition: 1st, 208 pages

Description

Biography & Autobiography. Multi-Cultural. Sociology. Nonfiction. HTML:In 1962 the poet, musician, and performer Maya Angelou claimed another piece of her identity by moving to Ghana, joining a community of "Revolutionist Returnees" inspired by the promise of pan-Africanism. All God's Children Need Walking Shoes is her lyrical and acutely perceptive exploration of what it means to be an African American on the mother continent, where color no longer matters but where American-ness keeps asserting itself in ways both puzzling and heartbreaking. As it builds on the personal narrative of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and Gather Together in My Name, this book confirms Maya Angelou�??s stature as one of the most gifted autobiographers of our time.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member rcooper3589

The best part of this book is the title. Needless to say, I was not impressed with the book itself. I found it disjointed and un-eventful. I feel bad saying this as this is suppossed to be part of an amazing, ground breaking autobiography- and I can see how it could be... I just didn't feel it. I'm

not familiar with the majority of situations described in the book, and instead of Angelou explaining it to me, she just left it as is and I became even more confused. Then, to make it even more frustrating, she isn't a very likable character- I actually found her annoying! And all I want to know is why she doesn't eat fish! I feel bad I didn't like the book... I really wanted to!

FAVORITE QUOTES: The Ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.

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LibraryThing member BethKalb

Read for English SuperBowl one year in high school.

LibraryThing member VikkiLaw

Angelou remembers (re)meeting Malcolm X during his visit to Ghana. Before he left, he said to her, "When you hear that the Urban League or the NAACP is giving a formal banquet at the Waldorf-Astoria, I know you won't go, but don't knock them. They give scholarships to poor Black children. One of

those recipients might become a Julian Mayfield, or a Maya Angelou, or a Malcolm X."

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LibraryThing member ValerieAndBooks

All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes is the fifth in a series of seven autobiographies by Maya Angelou. I have yet to read the last two, but this volume is the least compelling thus far. Angelou's storytelling seemed relatively flat. Not only that, there seemed to be an undercurrent of anger and

dissatisfaction throughout. Covering her time as a Black-American living in Ghana, along with others who had hoped to escape negative American attitudes towards blacks, Angelou becomes disillusioned upon finding that native Ghanaians did not necessarily welcome these Americans with open arms. Not only that, Angelou was also dealing with an empty nest for the first time -- her son was off to college.

I certainly would not expect anyone to be Pollyannaish, especially Angelou, but reading this volume was tiring in a way that you have an unhappy friend whom you feel powerless to help.

"For me sleep was difficult that night. My bed was lumpy with anger and my pillow a rock of intemperate umbrage (p. 142)".

Although this volume was a bit of a letdown in comparison with the earlier ones, I still look forward to reading the next two autobiogrpahies in the series.

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LibraryThing member JerseyGirl21

I found the book very interesting and found it difficult to put it down.

LibraryThing member steller0707

I've been reading through the autobiographies of Maya Angelou. This is the next for me - fifth in the series of seven written by this extraordinary woman. The title derives from a Negro Spiritual, and describes Angelou's years spent in Ghana in the early 1960s. She became part of the ex-pat

community and felt both at home because of her ancestry and apart because she was immediately recognized as a Black American. Although she made many Ghanaian friends she was surprised at the attitudes of the people who wondered why she would leave America. Angelou felt they did not understand the conditions of race relations in America.

I enjoyed this book and the adventures she describes as she discovers Ghana. But I feel the best of the series so far was the first, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings."

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LibraryThing member threadnsong

What an honest account of her travels back to Africa and her struggles to make her way in her new homeland. She is honest in her recounting of learning the new languages, customs, and rules, both among the Ghanaian people and the ex-pats who were many of her first contacts there. The accident that

changes her and her son's life is described in intense detail as taking both a physical and emotional toll on them. And it took me a while to realize she was talking about Malcolm X coming to Ghana but what an incredible event in her stay there. Ms. Angelou rubs shoulders with leaders of all layers of society, including royalty, and her incorporating these events in her life are honest. And her poetry of language is, as always, fantastic.

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