The memoir begins with Dave Pelzer at twelve years old, getting an examination from his school nurse. He lied to her about the bruises all over his body, but she knew that they were from his mother, who beat him. He escorted Dave to a meeting with a police officer and the police officer took him away, telling him that he would never have to go back to his mother again—he was free.
Next, the memoir rewinds to Dave's early childhood years, when his mother was kind and he lived happily and without worries. His father worked most days, but his mother took the boys on day trips around the city, always teaching them whatever lessons she could.
They would go on family vacations to the Russian River, a place that made Dave happier than anything else. But Dave's relationship with his mother began to change as she started disciplining him more and more, and this turned into full-scale abuse that spiraled out of control. The abuse was not as bad when his father was around, so Dave latched on to him—but his father did not dare to defy his mother, and warned Dave to be a "good boy" around her.
He and Dave's mother would have afternoon happy hours, when they would drink a lot in the kitchen, and his mother always beat him worse when he was drunk.
School was a haven for Dave, since it was the only place he could get away from his mother. But things at home get worse, as she forced a bar of soap down Dave's throat, left him home during a family vacation, and even made him hold his arms over a burning stove. Soon, she began to starve him, and he spent all his time trying to figure out ways to get food. He stole it from kids at school, from the grocery store, and from the frozen-lunch trucks, but his mother started making him vomit after coming home from school to make sure he had not eaten anything.
The worst came one day when she was waving a knife at him as a threat. It slipped from her hands and stabbed him in the stomach, and he was seriously injured. Just look at some of the comments in the reviews to see this.
She went onto abuse anothe …more Society finds it hard to accept a mother is capable of abuse. She went onto abuse another son after David left. Miranda H Khevin04, Dave Pelzer went on to write several more books about his childhood and how he persevered beyond the abuse he sustained and grew up to becom …more Khevin04, Dave Pelzer went on to write several more books about his childhood and how he persevered beyond the abuse he sustained and grew up to become a motivational speaker and advocate for others with similar childhoods filled with abuse.
His younger brother Richard Pelzer also wrote an account of his own about growing up with their abusive mother. His book is called "A Brother's Journey. I use these books in my high school classroom I am a teacher and we have located several articles and interviews in addition to the books which help you better understand the Pelzers' unique and heart-wrenching accounts. Good luck! See all 70 questions about A Child Called "It"…. Lists with This Book. Community Reviews.
Showing Average rating 4. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Aug 12, Laura rated it did not like it Recommends it for: The very credulous. Shelves: overrated , fiction.
This book is very likely made up from start to finish. The events in it read like Pelzer imagined the worst child abuse possible and then said, "And it all happened to me! His brother and grandmother said in an interview that it was all rubbish, too, which casts more doubt upon the whole thing. Pelzer also bought his own book in bulk so the sales numbers would put it on the bestseller list -- he just doesn't have a whole lot of credibility.
Perhaps worse than the fact that Pelzer i This book is very likely made up from start to finish. Perhaps worse than the fact that Pelzer is, shall we say, probably somewhat fluid with the truth, is the fact that he's a dreadful writer. I no longer own the book didn't put it through a shredder, like I did with "A Million Little Pieces," but I got rid of it as quickly as I could , so I can't list any examples here, but I do recall that I've seen better writing in sixth-grade themes.
View all comments. Mar 10, Eric rated it it was ok Shelves: abuse , memoirs , mental-illness , addiction. View all 68 comments. Aug 13, TK rated it it was ok. This book was horrible. A waste of my time.
You see, what really pisses me off with this book is this: I have known kids that have come from horribly abusive situations that are more genuine than Pelzer is in his "memoir. Now, before anyone wants to crucify me, look at the facts: His family members were interviewed and stated that this was pure fantasy.
I can concede This book was horrible. I can concede that the family members may have lied. He bought numerous copies of his own book to inflate sales records so that the book would have a better chance at getting on bestseller lists. Again, I can concede that he was only helping his writing along by wanting his book to be seen by a greater audience.
However, and here is the kicker for me, if this story is true, then shouldn't just writing it and getting the story told redemption enough for Pelzer? A story of this magnitude should be told, there's no doubt about that. But it should be told with grace and humility. Pelzer should have approached this book as an avatar to the thousands of other kids out there that don't have a voice. Instead, Pelzer grandstands and makes the issue of child abuse seem like a sensationalistic piece of family trivia.
Very disappointing. View all 71 comments. Easily the most terrifying book I've ever read. I think I had literally repressed the memory of it, until I randomly happened across the title this week. I experienced this book in a fairly odd way, during a week-long cheerleading camp my sophomore year of high school. My coach was reading it and somehow ended up reading the entire book aloud to my squad during breaks and at night. Once she started, we were all addicted and spent every free moment listening with rapt and horrified attention.
I r Easily the most terrifying book I've ever read. I remember with almost painful clarity the way in which we sat at her feet listening to this story of a boy who endured a long childhood of astonishing, sadistic abuse at the hands of his mother. Girls were crying for long stretches, and not being a crier myself, I listened in a sort of shell-shocked, wide-eyed paralysis.
After every single part of the reading, I was convinced it couldn't get worse, that she couldn't possibly do anything worse to that little boy. And every single time I was wrong.
I'm not sure I would actually recommend this book or not. It is good - very good - but reads with the sort of harrowing inhumanity of a Holocaust memoir. Not light reading, and not a feel-good "I survived the odds" story. It kind of just makes you want to go home and tell your parents that you love them, and then bawl your eyes out. View all 12 comments. Oct 05, Ahmad Sharabiani rated it really liked it Shelves: non-fiction , memoir , biography , 20th-century , adult , united-states.
He is best known for his memoir of childhood abuse, A Child Called "It". It is the story of the early years of a boy's life, and a real and moving memory. It is Dave Pelzer's childhood, under torture and brutal starvation by his mother who was unstable and constantly intoxicated. From the mother's point of view, her son was no longer her beloved child, he was a slave, nor a boy, but "nothing" and that was "It".
The boy's bed, or old military blanket, was in the basement. His clothes were torn and frail. If the mother allowed him to eat, he would eat only the leftovers in the dog foods. He endured years of struggle, deprivation and despair, to fulfill his dreams, and to leave something of himself in this world.
Mar 23, Kohei rated it it was amazing Shelves: school-year-book. Dave Pelzer, the author of the autobiographical book, A Child Called It, shows the very dark corners of child abuse by viewing to the readers his horrific life as a young boy living with his mother that constantly abused him.
Dave Pelzer, who lived with his unstable, disturbed, alcoholic mother in a town in California during the early 70's, explains his story about his torturous unforgettable years as a young boy. Throughout the story, he does his best to survive from his mother and tries to stay alive from the pain of hunger, bruises and cuts he receives. The only thing that keeps him alive are his dreams, wanting a happy and safe family, and also being someone.
Once you have read the last word of the story, and closed the book, you will definitely know that this book has just changed your life, and your perspective of issues like these around the world, trust me, that is a fact. View all 16 comments. Jul 05, Maria Elmvang rated it did not like it Shelves: , not-owned , non-fiction , biographies , 1-star. I did not like this book. But that's okay. You're not supposed to like it. It's a horrible, horrible book.
A trainwreck of a book. I wanted to look away, but just couldn't. I know it's the first part in a trilogy, but I doubt I'm going to read the other two books. It was too, too depressing. Actually, the person I got most angry with was the father. The mother was obviously sick and needed help. There's no other explanation for the awful things she subjected her son to. But what's the father's ex I did not like this book. But what's the father's excuse? He just stood by and did nothing?
No, that's not true - he stood by and did nothing I don't get it. Nowhere in the book was it stated that he seemed afraid of his wife, so why did he allow her to treat their son so horribly? You don't just stand by and let your SO practically kill your son, you just don't! There were two things I would have liked to know: 1 What made David different from the rest of his brothers? Why was he the one who was treated so horribly? If his mother had had some kind of reason, just something that set him apart, it would at least be part of an explanation even if it's no excuse, but it seemed totally random.
I guess it was Did she get some kind of help? Were her other boys taken away from her too? The book ended in a cliff-hanger fashion which annoyed me. Too many loose ends. I don't recommend it.
Most of you would never treat a child like that anyway, and if you would, no amount of reading about it would change your opinion that you're in the 'right'. The only time I would encourage reading it is if you know somebody you fear may be subjected to child abuse, or if you want to be convinced that you should become a foster parent. View all 22 comments. Oh my god, what can I possibly say about this book? When I first started reading this book last year, I was just so hooked to it and I just wanted to know everything about this book.
It was all about this author's childhood gone horrible with the extreme abuse, the torture and suffering. I really couldn't believe my eyes, the author described like, everything he went through, all the pain he had to go through, how he felt and everything. I could really understand how he felt but one thing about Oh my god, what can I possibly say about this book? I could really understand how he felt but one thing about this book I don't get at all is how his own mother transformed from a loving mother to a nightmarish, abusive mother so quickly.
I mean, the author was only, like a little boy when his mother started abusing him. This book is extremely emotional and can make you feel so bad for the author and even cry so. This book was all about the author's childhood and how he survived through such abuse, starvation, and neglect.
This also showed how bad things happen to good people - the author's own father didn't even help out at all - he was once a fun, loving fireman, turned into an alcoholic, carless father. He was pratically stabbed in the belly and had to go through such pain. In the end, he told the school the truth and he was finally taken out of the horrible home, with the abusive mother, two brothers that weren't treated horribly at all and the careless, alcoholic father - and put into a much better home - foster home.
I loved this first book so much that I even continued on to the next book! A lot of thanks goes to my teacher, for lending me the books - it's one of my most favorites! Jul 18, Rebecca rated it it was ok Shelves: nonfiction.
I've sat with this book on my desk for a couple weeks, unable to decide what I would write for a review. I'm wholly torn between this being one of my most-asked-for and least-favorite-ever titles. Eric's Goodreads review says pretty much what I would say. The writing was cliched I've sat with this book on my desk for a couple weeks, unable to decide what I would write for a review.
The writing was cliched and the "plot" moved along by way of "one day," "one Sunday," or "later. There is absolutely no process of recovery or explanation or psychological background, and the book leaves huge questions open, saying "Please understand that many of your questions will be answered in the next two books in the trilogy series.
It's a great marketing gimmick for fiction, but not for a supposedly true story. That kind of self-exploitation leaves a bad taste in my mouth. All that being said, I am going to try to take this book for what it is: an excellent awareness-raiser about child abuse; a survival story that may help many think "if he can get through that, I can get through anything"; and a simple, quick, can't-look-away-from-the-train-wreck read that kids and teens have given a cult following. May they then move on to something better.
View all 17 comments. Mar 16, Sammy rated it it was amazing Shelves: a-the-best. Okay, this is going to be a short and sweet review since it's a non-fictional autobiography and you can't really critique things like characters and story. But I'm going to say what I can This book was a hard one to read yet I couldn't put it down. There's a different something in Dave's story that will keep different people reading. Mine was: Why? I wanted to know why his mother did this.
I wanted to know what made her do it. I wanted to know how she could to it. And I wanted to know why it w Okay, this is going to be a short and sweet review since it's a non-fictional autobiography and you can't really critique things like characters and story. And I wanted to know why it was Dave she picked out of him and his brothers. What made Dave the one she singled out for such monstrous torture. But that's something people involved in child abuse cases ask themselves every day.
You really do feel for Dave. You don't feel with him because there are moments so bad that he has to disconnect himself. I couldn't do that while reading it though. I almost felt that if I could send my anger and frustration and sadness and hope out there it would stop. Of course it was foolish of me seeing as it happened many years ago and he's a grown man who escaped his mothers claws. I was only annoyed by the fact that the book was too short and that dividing his story into three seperate books seemed unnecessary.
Especially because by the end the reader has become so invested in Dave and feels like they're such a part of his life, they want to go with him as he continues on to the next, hopefully happier chapter in his life.
Perhaps it was a publishers marketing scheme to get more money or something. Goodness knows it wasn't Dave's. His goal was to tell his story, thank those who helped him, and open a door to shed light on an issue that is often hidden away.
All of which he accomplished magnificently. What we learn in Dave's story is that child abuse is real. It comes in many forms, but it's out there and it's up to those of us in the lives of children to stand up and be the voice for the abused.
Another thing we learn is to not back down in that fight, of course there will be road blocks, but if you champion for a child as those special people in Dave's life did, you can help. You can save a life, heart, and soul. You can give a child hope. This book is a must-read I'd say. I of course went out and got the follow-up I hate to use the word sequel with something like this and read it right away.
That's a review to follow later. If you are debating about reading this book I will just say that it is a hard read. If you're a mother it will probably be especially hard. If you have a deep compassion and love for children it will probably be hard. If you yourself have experienced abuse it will probably be hard.
If you just have a heart it will be hard. But don't give up. It would be even harder to just quit in the middle, trust me on that. It's that end, despite being a beginning, that will bring tears to your eyes and a much needed smile to your face. View all 5 comments.
Zahara In my English class a few other students and I created a blog on the next two books in the series. I would In my English class a few other students and I created a blog on the next two books in the series. I would appreciate any feedback. Rebecca There was no reason why it was him.
None at all, it was always going to be one of them. He was a scapegoat that helped her control the whole family - s There was no reason why it was him. He was a scapegoat that helped her control the whole family - she had someone to vent her frustrations on - someone to get sadistic pleasure from torturing but also it was functional, to keep the family under control. His experience was one of the worst cases of child abuse reported in California history at the time.
The book is the first in a trilogy—the first chronicling the childhood abuse, the second his teenage years in foster care, and the third his rehabilitation in adulthood. Here's what you'll find in our full A Child Called 'It' summary :. Her penchant for always having a book nearby has never faded, though her reading tastes have since evolved.
Rina reads around books every year, with a fairly even split between fiction and non-fiction. Her favorite genres are memoirs, public health, and locked room mysteries.
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