Have the Kleenex ready - you will need them. (A Child Called 'It' - Dave Pelzer)

Member Name: oldchem

Product:	A Child Called 'It' - Dave Pelzer
Date:	21/06/09 (61 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A spell binding book that you can't stop reading.

Disadvantages: Very distressing

I can't imagine that there are many people who have not heard of the book - "A Boy Called It" by David Pelzer, but just in case there are some who have slipped the net I have decided to write a review of the book.

The book is first part of the trilogy written by Pelzer of his life, 'The Lost Boy' and 'A Man Named Dave' finish the trilogy. .

I cannot say that this is a 'good book' - it is terrible,depressing, heartbreaking, harrowing and yet it took me only a couple of hours
to read it because once I started reading it I literally could not stop.

The story ( written in the words of a child) - actually starts with his rescue and then tells you of the abuse he had been put through for all those years.
What makes it worse is that this is a true story that tugs on your heart strings.
This book tells of what is classed as "one of the most severe child abuse cases in California history". The story of Dave Pelzer, who was brutally beaten and starved by his alcoholic mother.

This book chronicles David's life with his mother from the age of four to twelve. Up to the age of four David had a good family life with his two older brothers, his Fireman father, Steve, and his wonderful mother, life was 'perfect'.
Then suddenly she changed, and we are never given any explanation of this change - up to her death in the final book of the trilogy she never explained why she suddenly changed so radically.

When "The Boy" or "It" as he is later known by his mother, was 4 years old, his mother began drink heavly and become an alcolholic and she obviously was suffering from mental illness. She changed from being a loving mother and she became a cruel monster.

David's mother, in a drunken state, accidentally breaks the arm of her young son - she managed to make the doctors believe that the break had been caused by David falling out of a top bunk - when David kept quiet, his mother knew that she would be able to treat him as she liked and he would keep quiet.

To be perfectly honest I find it very difficult to review this book, and how to describe it. As I read this book I found myself sobbing uncontrollably for a child I didn't even know but care for so deeply, I wanted to pluck him from the pages and just hug him.
My mind could not comprehend how any parent could inflict such tortures on their child for so long and show no emotion.

I don't want to go too much into the assaults that were inflicted on the boy, but just a few were starvation- he was starved for days on end, forcing him to steal food from both school and local grocery store but got caught and the grocery store owner called his mother so in turn he got punished, he had his face pushed into mirrors, was force-fed him ammonia and was even forced to eat the contents of a baby's nappy. To make matters worse his mother made Dave believe it was his fault, that he made her do this to him.

At one stage in the book we heard how Dave was classed as not being worthy of living with the rest of the family and was banished to the garage.
Eventually David was no longer a true member of the family. He was not a son, but a slave. Not a child, but an "it".


You may ask where was his father, in my mind he was as much to blame as his wife. He knew what was happening and yet he would turn away, knowing the abuse his child was suffering, and turned himself to alcohol.

Throughout all of the boy's ordeal he still dreamt of finding a family who would love and care for him.

Bad as the treatment of this child was this was not classed as the worse case of child abuse in California - just how bad was the worst?

After reading this book, I know that child abuse continues to occur and it must be stopped

Summary: A must read but be prepared to continue with the entire trilogy