This anthology is comprised of two major components: thirteen autobiographical essays written by persons with learning disabilities and five analytical chapters written by education and psychology scholars.

Speaking in terms alternately intimate and analytical, autobiographical essays tell of sustained personal encounters with the challenges and mysteries of living with a learning disability. These full-length autobiographies are not merely personal, concerned solely with their writers' private lives; rather, they are also consciously analytical, offering astute, critical readings of culture and society.

The essays are written by noted educators and psychologists. Although keyed to the autobiographies appearing earlier in the book, these scholarly essays stand on their own as lucid and original contributions to the literature on learning disabilities.