Gugu smiled. “My darling child, you are already perfect. You just have to be yourself.” She pulled Shudu closer. “Just remember one thing, my child. If you are beautiful inside,” she tapped Shudu’s chest where her heart was beating, “then you will always be beautiful outside.”

In this courageous and beautiful book, Miss South Africa, Shudufhadzo Musida, tells the story of her beginnings; of a singing and dancing and chatty girl in a small village named Ha-Vhangani, surrounded by love and most especially by her mum and Gogo Gugu.

But things go wrong for Shudu when she moves to a new town and she is bullied by her classmates. Read how Shudu overcomes her sadness and her challenges, and becomes a girl, and then an adult, who has learned to love herself!