David+Huang

A Child Called "It" Book Review One of the worst child abuse cases in California's history came to an end on March 5, 1973 when David Pelzer entered foster care. David begins his incredible story as an abused child with his rescue in part one of a series, A Child Called "It". Calling this book a "page turner" doesn't give it justice. Easy to read, but difficult to comprehend how any mother could treat her child this way. The book begins with the people at Dave's school finally report Dave and his condition to the police. Then he tells us about his past when he still lived in a happy, normal family. Dave had a mother, father and two older brothers. While his Father is at work as a fire fighter, his mother turns to alcohol. She starts treating Dave like an animal and makes him lives in the garage and sleeps there too. She would grab him and smash him in the mirror when the family is having dinner she would make him sit in a POW (prisoner of war) position. Sometimes she would make him starve for a couple days. Dave then planned to steal food from other children's bag, but he was caught, and his mom was called to the principal's office. Then when he went home his mother told him to go to the toilet and wait there she came there with ammonia on a spoon and made Dave drink it. Then his mother was pregnant when she went to the hospital, “my father let me play with my brothers. (72)His mother had come with a lovely boy, but he was not allowed to touch his little brother, to talk, or make eye contact with others. After a long time, the family went out for a week, but Dave was left alone and tortured. She let him go out and play for the first day, but she was missing the torturing, so the next day she made him stay back and made him to sit in the corner. She brought his little bothers dirty nappy and told him to eat it but he didn't, so she took the dirty nappy and rubbed it on his face. Dave always thought that his father was superman and was going to save him from his mother ,but soon his hopes getting weak as his father would fight with his mother, and then Dave would get punished as his mother would tell him that his father and mother fight all because of him. Dave's father started coming home late, and sometimes he wouldn't come home for two days. Each time Dave started ignoring his mother, she would threaten him that she would kill him. One day Dave was annoying, so she got a knife and told him that she would kill him and suddenly she put the knife in his stomach. Dave couldn't believe that his mother could do this. He started feeling dizzy and fainted .His mother cleaned all the blood and washed his clothes. After a few hours, when he was able to stand up, his mother tells him to go and wash up the dishes. Dave goes to his father and tells him "mother stabbed me,"(53) but his father doesn't even see how bad his wound was he only said, "go and do your chores before your mother comes and sees you talk to me"(54)Dave hates his father even more as he wasn't bothered to even look at him. Days passed by, Dave was feeling much better and then his mother starts being nice to him and says go play with your brother. Dave thought the bad days were over he slept in his bedroom and did the same things as his brothers. Had dinner with his family and then a lady came home and asked Dave if he was happy at first Dave didn't realize but then soon he understood why they all were kind to him. The book ends with Dave's mom and getting divorced and Dave left with his mother. The length of time was eight years. Dave's age in it was from four to twelve. What happened in the story was unusual for me as I have never been through child abuse before or I haven’t read a book of child abuse, I only heard stories about it but this is horrific. The opening of the story was very exciting as I wanted to keep on reading the book it kept me very engrossed in the book. A Child Called It