Letter to My Daughter

In this work published by Random House, Angelou offers a collection of essays and stories full of advice and memories to women of all ages and nationalities. She explains what prompted her to write this book:

I had no daughters. I had a son who was the best thing that ever happened to me in my life. But in reality I have lots of daughters. Black ones, white ones, Asian ones and Jewish ones and the Spanish-speaking ones… Sometimes I’ll get a thousand pieces of mail a week from young women who think I’m wise. So they use me as a mother and I think of them as my daughters. So I thought it was time to say, ‘Listen, kids, I have been here and done this. I got into this scrape and got out of it. I paid for it. I want you to know that if you take this road in the dark, to the left there’s a big hole and if you’re not careful you’ll step in it and break your foot.’