Phoenix Award Phoenix Award The Phoenix Award annually recognizes one English-language children's book published twenty years earlier that did not then win a major literary award. It is named for the mythical bird phoenix that is reborn from its own ashes, signifying the book's rise from relative obscurity. The award was established and is conferred by the Children's Literature Association (ChLA), a nonprofit organization based in the United States whose mission is to advance "the serious study of children's literature". The winner is selected by an elected committee of five ChLA members, from nominations by members and outsiders. The token is a
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings unsettled life in "Caged Bird" suggests her sense of self "as perpetually in the process of becoming, of dying and being reborn, in all its ramifications". African-American literature scholar Dolly McPherson agrees, stating that Angelou creatively uses Christian mythology and theology to present the Biblical themes of death, regeneration, and rebirth. As Lauret indicates, Angelou and other female writers in the late 1960s and early 1970s used autobiography to reimagine ways of writing about women's lives and identities in a male-dominated society. Up until this time, Black women were not depicted realistically in African-American fiction and autobiography, meaning that Angelou