 Both McWhorter and scholar Hilton Als found Angelou 's writing throughout her series self @-@ important . Although McWhorter has admitted to being charmed by Angelou 's sense of authority she has inserted into her works , which he calls her " black @-@ mother wit " , he considered Angelou 's autobiographies after Caged Bird " smug " , and has stated that she " implicitly dares the reader to question her private line to God and Truth " . Als agreed , stating what made Song different from her preceding volumes is her " ever @-@ increasing unreliability " . Als stated that Angelou , in her six autobiographies , " has given us ... the self @-@ aggrandizing , homespun , and sometimes oddly prudish story of a black woman who , when faced with the trials of life , simply makes do " . Als believed that Angelou 's essays , written in the 1990s , were a better culmination of her work as an autobiographer . 
