“Parents with or without tattoos will be touched by [this] heartwarming tale about sharing your past with your children—it leaves a mark” (Real Simple). It’s after dinner and a little boy wants a story from his father. It’s story he’s heard many times before, one etched all over his father’s body. So, dad once again tells his little son the story behind each of his tattoos, and together they go on a beautiful journey through family history. There’s a tattoo from a favorite book his mother used to read him, one from something his father used to tell him, and one from the longest trip he ever took. And there is a little heart with numbers inside—which might be the best tattoo of them all. Tender pictures by the New York Times–bestselling illustrator Eliza Wheeler complement this lovely ode to all that's indelible—ink and love.

Father Boyle started Homeboy Industries nearly 20 years ago, which has served members of more than half of the gangs in Los Angeles. This collection presents parables about kinship and the sacredness of life drawn from Boyle's years of working with gangs.

Body art can tell personal stories. When linked to a difficult or traumatic life, it can even restore one’s sense of well-being. As director of a community health center for twenty-seven years and as a nurse practitioner for over forty years, Donna Torrisi became fascinated with the stories behind her patients’ tattoos. When she began to ask her female patients about their markings, themes of trauma, pain, and loss emerged, and it became clear that the art indelibly marked on their bodies had played a part in their healing and redemption. The women featured in Tattoo Monologues demonstrate vulnerability and courage as they share both their personal tattoo narratives and photos of the images on their bodies. These women represent diverse cultures, ethnicities, and professional contexts, but they are united by their use of tattoos as a tool for processing traumatic life experiences. The images, stories, emotions, and journeys in this book collectively tell a compelling story. A story of skin and ink. A story of trauma and adversity. A story of courage and resilience.

The souls of men and women have chosen this season in history to speak in a unique and special way. The soul is writing its secrets on the live canvas of the skin with permanent ink... with tattoos. Many see a person covered in tattoos walk by and harbor a snarky and judgmental response, when in fact the tattoos just told a very personal story. The stories of pain, loss, hope, and other sentiments of great importance are revealed on the skin of the wearer. And those without tattoos may very well have missed a loud, yet intimately revealing, message. The first book, God and Tattoos: Why Are People Writing on Themselves? and this new edition, both take a look at the WHY. After 1000 tattoo interviews and several tattoo parlors and conventions across the nation, Dr. Allan Dayhoff shares his research, and his love for his many new tattooed friends.

Dear God, please let my dad die in his sleep tonight-pleeeease, don't let him kill me before he dies. As a child, Marisa's prayers were left unanswered as she begged God to save her from her abusive alcoholic father. Now she is convinced her nightmares are a punishment. God left her, and the nightmares are a curse the Devil placed on her for being a bad child.Finding herself alone in a world she doesn't understand, Marisa's fight for survival leads her to bullying others, taking drugs, and entering an abusive relationship as her life plummets into an endless chasm of bad decisions. Now in her forties and newly divorced, the nightmares return. Questioning her mental state and her ability to raise her kids, she begins a quest to find out the truth about the demons in her head. Marisa is astoundingly open about her doubts and concerns along her unlikely journey. Can she break the curse to find her inner peace and redemption? The Lotus Tattoo is a remarkably candid memoir of one woman's story of resilience after abuse and the fear, anger, and mind games she battles along the way.

A bestselling author-illustrator duo join forces to create a modern father-son love story. The father tells his little son the story behind each of his tattoos, and together they go on a beautiful journey through family history. There's a tattoo from a favorite book his mother used to read him, one from something his father used to tell him, and one from the longest trip he ever took. And there is a little heart with numbers inside—which might be the best tattoo of them all. Tender pictures by New York Times bestselling illustrator Eliza Wheeler complement this lovely ode to all that's indelible—ink and love. Plus, this is the fixed-format version, which looks almost identical to the print edition!

“Together, [these pictures and stories] do the work of great literature-gathering a force so true they ultimately tell a story that includes us all.” -Cheryl Strayed, from the Introduction From New York Times bestselling illustrator Wendy MacNaughton and bestselling author Isaac Fitzgerald--the stories behind the question, Why did you get that tattoo? Every tattoo tells a story, whether the ink is meaningful or the result of a misguided decision made at the age of fourteen, representative of the wearer's true self or the accidental consequence of a bender. Pen & Ink grants us access to the tattoos-and the stories behind them-of writers Cheryl Strayed and Roxane Gay; rockers in the bands Korn, Otep, and Five Finger Death Punch; and even a porn star. But it also illuminates the tattoos of the ordinary people living in our midst-from professors to thrift store salespeople, cafe owners to librarians, union organizers to administrators-and their extraordinary lives. Curated and edited by Isaac Fitzgerald, who sports twelve tattoos himself, each story “is like being let in on . . . secrets by . . . strangers who passed you on the street or sat across from you on the train” (Strayed) and features Wendy MacNaughton's gorgeously rendered full-color illustrations of the tattoos on black-and-white drawings of the bearer's body. At its heart, beneath its colorful skin, Pen & Ink is an exploration of the decision to scar one's self with a symbol and a story.