Jaycee Dugard Celebrates 36th Birthday with New Book 'Freedom: My Book of Firsts'

Jaycee Dugard is 36-years-old today, and the kidnapping survivor is celebrating with a new book. Born on May 3, 1980, Dugard made headlines when she disappeared from her South Lake Tahoe, California home on June 10, 1991. She was 11-years-old and would remain missing for the next 18-years. She was found on August 26, 2009, and had given birth to two children with her captor Philip Garrido. The nation was elated that Jaycee Dugard had been found, but shocked to learn that helping Phillip Garrido in the abduction,  concealment and cover-up of sexual abuse of 11-year-old Jaycee was Garrido's wife, Nancy Garrido. Jaycee Dugard has written two books discussing her ordeal at the hands of her kidnappers as well as her life following freedom. The first book is titled A Stolen Life: A Memoir. Published in 2011, Jaycee takes the reader back to her life as an 11-year-old, innocent girl who loved her mother, sister and was adjusting to life with her step-father only to walk to school one day, get knocked out by a stun gun, and awake in a car with two strangers. You may read Jaycee's own words in the description of her book as it appears on Amazon.

Jaycee Dugard in Family Photo at time of kidnapping

"In the summer of June of 1991, I was a normal kid. I did normal things. I had friends and a mother that loved me. I was just like you. Until the day my life was stolen.
For eighteen years I was a prisoner. I was an object for someone to use and abuse. For eighteen years I was not allowed to speak my own name. I became a mother and was forced to be a sister. For eighteen years I survived an impossible situation.

"On August 26, 2009, I took my name back. My name is Jaycee Lee Dugard. I don’t think of myself as a victim, I simply survived an intolerable situation. A Stolen Life is my story—in my own words, in my own way, exactly as I remember it."

The reader would quickly agree that Jaycee Dugard tells her life in  A Stolen Life: A Memoir in a no-holds barred way. The reader quickly identifies with Jaycee and can understand the sheer terror and fear she experienced. While no one can truly know what it is like to go through an experience like A Stolen Life: A Memoir became a #1 New York Times bestseller.
Jaycee Dugard did, unless they lived it, Jaycee writes her experiences in such a truthful and brutally honest way that it is difficult to not only empathize, but truly feel as if you understand what she went through on a deep level.

Shortly before the release of A Stolen Life: A Memoir, Jaycee Dugard granted her first television interview in July 2011. She spoke to Diane Sawyer and the interview was watched by many nationwide. You may see that interview below.



 Jaycee Dugard's second book is titled Freedom: My Book of Firsts. You can read the description for Freedom: My Book of Firsts as it appears on Amazon below.

"In the follow-up to her #1 bestselling memoir, A Stolen Life, Jaycee Dugard tells the story of her first experiences after years in captivity: the joys that accompanied her new found freedom and the challenges of adjusting to life on her own.

"When Jaycee Dugard was eleven years old, she was abducted from a school bus stop within sight of her home in South Lake Tahoe, California. She was missing for more than eighteen years, held captive by Philip and Nancy Garrido, and gave birth to two daughters during her imprisonment.

"A Stolen Life, which sold nearly two million copies, told the story of Jaycee’s life from her abduction in 1991 through her reappearance in 2009. Freedom: My Book of Firsts is about everything that happened next.

“How do you rebuild a life?” Jaycee asks.

"In these pages, she describes the life she never thought she would live to see: from her first sight of her mother to her first time meeting her grownup sister, her first trip to the dentist to her daughters’ first day of school, her first taste of champagne to her first hangover, her first time behind the wheel to her first speeding ticket, and her first dance at a friend’s wedding to her first thoughts about the possibility of a future relationship.
This raw and inspiring book will remind readers that there is, as Jaycee writes, “life after something tragic happens…Somehow, I still believe that we each hold the key to our own happiness and you have to grab it where you can in whatever form it might take.”

Freedom: My Book of Firsts will be released on July 12, 2016, and is available for pre-order now.

You can learn more about Jaycee Dugard's books in my Amazon affiliate links below. Happy Birthday Jaycee!