An inspirational visual memoir by artist and educator James Haywood Rolling, Jr., written both for young adult audiences and those older who simply want to change the arc of their lives by writing its next important chapter. This richly composed exercise in the art of storytelling recognizes that your most significant story element isn’t your injury—it’s the remainder of your journey toward a vital transformation.
Learn More— for without a renewed vision of possibility, people wither and perish.
Learn MoreWhat’s the one area from your past that you keep getting your flesh caught in over and over again? Where are you still wounded and bleeding? The good news is that the most unanticipated and rewarding turns in the story often start with the ugliest beginnings.
Growing Up Ugly is an inspirational coming-of-age memoir that traces the upbringing of a painfully shy child with chronically low self-esteem—a Black boy reprimanded for daydreaming too much and raised in a struggling inner-city New York neighborhood who eventually grew to become an artist, a leading educator, and an award-winning scholar. This is a book for anyone who has ever been underestimated, bullied, abused, or simply overlooked.
— for without a renewed vision of possibility, people wither and perish.
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