One of the most disturbing but compelling books I've ever read! (One Child - Torey L. Hayden)

Member Name: missy0303

Product:	One Child - Torey L. Hayden
Date:	15/03/06 (660 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A truly compelling read!

Disadvantages: Some may find it too disturbing to read.

I had wanted this book after watching the film which was based on it, “Untamed Love” I had no idea when first watching that film that it was based on this book until I done my research for writing a review on said film.

I managed to get a copy of the book from Amazon for £3.99 and started reading it almost immediately! It took me 3 nights to read it as it was so compelling the only thing that made me put it down was the fact my eyes couldn’t stay open (I only manage to find time to read in bed at night)

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The Author
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In order for you to get a feel for the actual story I need to tell you a little bit about the author, Torey Hayden.
Torey is an educational psychologist (EP) and a special-needs (SN) teacher (or as we now call it in Scotland an additional support needs teacher) who has written 11 books to date, most of which are true stories of her own experiences and are about the children she has had in her care!

Because this story is true it is even more heart rending.

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The story
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One Child is Torey’s first published book. In it no details are changed including names of characters which all adds to the reality of it all.

Torey is drafted in to teach the “garbage class” which was the affectionate(?) name that was given to the class where the children didn’t quite fit into any other class, these were classes for the emotionally disturbed, for the physically handicapped, behaviour disorders etc but 8 children didn’t quite fit in to any of these. The garbage class was the class where Torey tried to work with them to try to mainstream them into one of the other classes eventually.

Torey had to have a full time aide, who came in the guise of Anton, he was a 29 yr old Mexican/American who spoke more Spanish than English and hadn’t even graduated from high school. Torey had no choice but to accept him.

The 8 children who arrive on the first day of school are Peter, an 8 year old who had a neurological disorder and was prone to severe seizures and could be quite violent,
Tyler, an 8 year old girl, who had tried to commit suicide twice, Max, a 6 year old boy who had been diagnosed with infantile autism and acted very unpredictably when subjected to change, Freddie, a 7 year old boy who was very overweight and the doctors weren’t sure if he was autistic or profoundly retarded! Then there was Sarah, a 7 year old whom Torey had met before when she worked with her in her preschool, Sarah was a victim of physical and sexual abuse and was an angry and defiant little girl, she had been electively mute, talking only to her mother and sister, Susannah Joy, a 6 year old china doll like girl, diagnosed as schizophrenic she spends her days hallucinating and weeping and rocking, William, a 9 year old who was haunted by all sorts of fears and would protect himself from his fears by compulsive actions like touching himself, or chanting spells, and last to arrive of the eight was Guillermo, also 9 years old and was a very angry boy but not totally uncontrollable, he was also blind, Torey wondered why he had been placed in her class but the answer was that the blind unit couldn’t cope with his outbursts of anger!

So these children had all arrived in August and Torey worked with them gaining their trust and encouraging them to participate in everything, group time was a vital part to their day where they would discuss everything and anything that the children and Torey wanted too. This helped the children come to terms with some of their feelings.

In November though Torey was told she would be getting another child to look after in January, but would perhaps only be for a short period of time as this 6 year old girl was waiting on a place for the state hospital! Which was nothing short of an institution. The reason for this was that Sheila had kidnapped a 3 year old boy and had strapped him to a tree and set fire to him, causing him severe burns.

So on the 8th of January Sheila arrived at the school, dressed shabbily and hair matted and a bit smelly of stale urine, obviously a fairly neglected child, she tried to escape straight away, but failed. The other children say that she stinks and they don’t really want her there. But Torey soon gets round that with asking them how they would feel being new and being teased etc.

Sheila is a very difficult little girl who completely flies off the handle at the least little thing and at first you may have a little contempt for her, but very slowly Torey begins to coax her into participating and slowly finds out that underneath her volatile nature is a very gifted and clever little girl. As the story progresses you get to see how Torey works with Sheila and how she responds, she clings to Torey a lot and starts to work hard for her, but doesn’t like change and is frightened by it, and it’s times like this that she does mean and nasty things to other people’s property.

Each time she does something nasty it’s as if she is expecting to be punished and is surprised when she is only sent to the thinking corner to chill out and contemplate what she has done.

We find out the reason for Sheila’s volatile nature, which I won’t divulge as it may spoil your reading, and we also experience some pretty horrific encounters of what happens to the little girl as we read on through the book. I am not going to give any more of the storyline away but I would say that if you are in any way disturbed by a quite frank description of child abuse then this is not the book for you.

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My Thoughts
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I thought this book was a truly magnificent story, it told of the tragedies which can happen, of the emotions of children and their carers, put a whole new perspective on how I look at children with learning/physical disabilities (which is the field I may someday like to work in) and is an honest and heartfelt tale of how a teacher can make a lot of difference to all of the children but especially to one little girl!

I thoroughly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in reading this sort of thing, It is not all sad, there are some really happy notes in the book.
It is a book which will make you cry, will make you angry, will make you happy too.

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Trivia
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This is some information taken from Torey Hayden’s website,

This book was not actually intended to be published, it was at first a personal to record Torey’s time with Sheila.

It is her first book, and took only 8 days from start to finish to write! And only 42 days since starting it to get it published!

It is available in 28 different languages!

There is a now a follow up book called Tiger’s Child which follows Sheila’s life 7 years later (I mean to order this as soon as possible)

I recommend after reading this book you visit the website to find out what the characters are up to now!

At the end of the book is a poem that Sheila wrote to Torey too, I was going to publish it here, but not sure of the copyright so decided against it, but you can read it in the book or on the website too. Type Torey Hayden into google for website.

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Other Info
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ISBN 0-00-719905-8
Paperback 324 pages
1st published 1980 by Avon Books (US)
and in 1981 by Souvenir Press LTD (UK)
My copy in 2004 by HarperElement.
Available from Amazon £3.99
And all other good bookstores too.

Thanks for reading
Michelle x

Summary: A true story which deals of the rather horrific effects of child abuse!