Liz Huntley, The Author

Elizabeth “Liz” Huntley has lived a life few could imagine in their worse nightmares or wildest fantasies. Elizabeth Humphrey was born to a pair of drug dealers in the deep South. At the age of five, her life came crumbling down when her father was incarcerated and her mother committed suicide. Prior to committing suicide, Liz’s mother split up her and her four siblings into various homes across Alabama. Liz ended up in Clanton, Alabama with her youngest sister, stern grandmother, and—as Liz would soon discover—sexually abusive uncle. Locked in such a cruel homelife, she grasped wholeheartedly what few escapes the world offered. Preschool, a rare and fortunate institution for someone of her time, race, and socioeconomic station, provided the much needed affection of maternal figures while associating education with hope. Books given by a local charity fueled her hunger for knowledge and for a better life outside her destitute prison. Ultimately, her pastor taught Liz that God cares even for the birds and that Liz was far more than a bird.

His lesson by no means made life perfect. The abuse continued in various forms, and poverty always proved to be an obstacle. However, at each low point in her life, Liz could now see the grace of God offering a way out. Seizing each of these opportunities, Liz achieved what she would have thought impossible in the first years after her mother’s death. She received a scholarship to Auburn University then another to the University of Alabama School of Law, became an attorney at one of the most prestigious firms in Alabama, and formed a stable family, so opposed to her own as a child, with a loving husband and three children.

Told in a voice as plain as it is powerful, More Than a Bird gives a glimpse at horror yet leaves only hope. Through her story, Liz proves that she is no bird, for on the wings of God, there is no height she cannot reach.

You Define You is a journal for teens & students to be used along with Liz Huntley's personal memoir More Than A Bird. The journal takes teens on their own journey to discover how they will define who they want to be as an adult regardless of any challenging circumstances they may be experiencing in the young life.

If you have students facing difficult circumstances at home, this journal guides them to push past their setbacks and set their gaze on a plausible, incredible future before them.

Co-authored by Liz Huntley and Cole Peck, this journal is a powerful journey for any student or child.