A story of hope (Lost Boy, The - Dave Pelzer)

Member Name: Nat.

Product:	Lost Boy, The - Dave Pelzer
Date:	18/03/02 (109 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Excellent

Disadvantages: Very upsetting

A child called it is one of the most moving true stories I have ever read. It was written by Dave Pelzer, who, as a child, was abused so badly by his mother that it was documented as the third worst child abuse case ever recorded in California. The most appauling thing about this, as you will discover on reading the book, is that there have actually been two children treated worse than he was. And, of course, others across the world will also have experienced such horrendous suffering.

This book tells the story of Dave aged between 4 and 11, before he was taken away from his mother and put into foster care. It is written from the perspective of a child going through such a horrible experience, so the vocabulary is fairly limited. The next book in the series, the lost boy, is about the chapter of his life when he was in foster care, and the final book, a man named Dave tells of his life as an adult.

The book begins with the story of how Dave was rescued from his evil mother by the people he now regards as heros. The reason for starting at this point in time is, I assume, to prevent people from getting disheartened as they read the book. You know that, at some point, somebody does finally see how bad things have become for him. School teachers, social workers and police officers risked their own jobs to intervene and take him away from his mother. This was a very heroic act indeed, but I couldn't help but wonder why it didn't happen sooner.

The book then moves on to describe the way he lived with his family before such abuse began, and from this point on, the book becomes more and more disturbing. He describes the way his life changed as his mother's alcohol dependancy and her bad relationship with Dave's father lead her to some sort of madness which she took out almost solely on one of her sons. It describes how Dave was subjected to stabbing, torture, humiliation in public and in private, being made to do all of the famil
y chores and being excluded from "her family," and referred to as "it."

All events are described in horrifficly graphic detail, so the book is definitely not for the faint-hearted. The most amazing, even awe inspiring things are Dave's determination to survive against all the odds, and not to give up, whatever she does to him. His admiration for his father never dwindles, even when his father won't interfere with the way Dave is being treated. And, against his better judgement, Dave's love for his mother, and his dream that one day she will love him back, "as she used to when they were a family," never disappears.

Dave becomes hated at school, his mother won't wash his clothes or buy him new ones, and the smell becomes more than anyone can bear. Dave is aware of this, but there is nothing he can do but suffer the humiliation. When his mother starts to starve him, things get even worse at scool. His determination to survive pushes Dave to steal food from other puplis and from shops, getting him into even more trouble at school. He falls behind with his studies, and school goes from being a place where he finds refuge among friends, to a place where he is regarded as a lazy trouble maker. But worse still faces him each evening when he comes home from school, as his mother forces him to vomit to prove that he hasn't been stealing food. He is then gased, beaten, humiliated, or treated in whatever other degrading way his mother can think of. He sleeps in the garage, is not allowed to speak to his brothers, and they are encouraged to treat him as slave.

I am not going to go into any more detail on the story, as I cannot begin to capture the agony of his existence. The book will make you cry, it may even make you laugh at time, as Dave somehow retains a sense of humour. However, I would NOT recommend reading it if things like this generally upset you, as it is terribly upsetting. I would also rec
ommend putting aside a few days to read it, and reading Dave's other books immediately afterwards. The book somehow induces a necessity to find out what happened to Dave when he finally escaped. It makes you feel guilty, thinking of all the children who are still being treated like this. But most of all, it raises awareness that such things are happenning. I only hope that for every person who reads these books, there will be another person on the look out to prevent such things from happenning to other children, who may not always be lucky enough to escape.

Summary: