A Child Called "It" by Dave Pelzer

This a the true story of a boy growing up in an abusive household. The story begins with a series of interactions between an 11-year-old David an his school nurse and teachers, the latter of the two contact the police and have David taken away from his abusive single mother, to a children's home.

The beginning of the book, as if to contrast the introduction, paints the picture of a happy family. He tells the reader how wonderful his mother was (specifically mother because she was the one who later abused him) and how close knit and loving the family had been. His mother, though a little bit of a clean freak, was the glue that held the family together. She was very knowledgeable and was an active sort of person, taking her sons out on field trips, family vacations, was a wonderful cook, and so on. As the years go on however, she begins to change. David's father was a fireman and because of that was sometimes away from home doing a 24 hour shift. In this time David's mother started to act a little bit differently when his father wasn't home. She would sit in front of the tv all day drinking alcohol and would more and more often refer to David as being a 'bad boy' and give him a punishment, seemingly for no reason. As the years progress these 'punishments' get worse and worse. David is starved for most of this book by his mother. She will go to great lengths to see that he does not eat, and if he does she punishes him. She made him drink cleaning liquids, made him stand or sit in one place for long periods of time until she said he could move. She accidentally stabs him at one point, and beats him almost every day. She would also play these games with him, like if he could finish his assigned chores within the allotted time slot, he could eat. He lives a life of unimaginable pain and torture, and no one in his family does anything to help him.

This book isn't in the biography section of the books store, but can actually be found under psychology. Though child abuse does deserve psychological treatment, recounting the experience of such is more of a biographical account than it is a psychological one, and indeed, you can find many other stories like this one in the biography section of your local book store. I think this book is classified as psychology not so much because of David's experience or his mother's (though both are worthy subjects) but more because of his father and his brothers and the neighbours and extended family. The people who knew what was happening to him and either stayed silent, or joined in. The mother was the head of the household. She was a very strong- willed individual and what she said was pretty much happened, and when she started picking on David, his father just sort of stood back and let it happen. From the book's account, the father was a timid man and couldn't really hold his own in an argument, a pushover in the bad sense. While he didn't agree with what was happening to David, instead of changing it he just snuck David food scraps or helped him with the dishes. The father may not have known the extent to which the mother abused David, as she seemed to act nicer when he was home, but at one point in the book he sat and watched as his son ate a half digested hot dog his mother had forced him to throw up earlier. The brothers also behaved disgustingly. David had several brothers, and despite his treatment, they apparently lived the life of normal boys. The first half of the book they merely ignored what their mother was doing to him and welcomed him if he was allowed to play that day, if not they didn't look at him as they weren't allowed to. Closer to the end of the book they start to bully him as their mother did. They would hit him, step on him, make fun of him, etc. It's really disgusting to think that those boys are somewhere in the world right now. The neighbours couldn't have known the details of the situation, but just his appearance or his behaviour would have been cause for concern. It's like that case with Kitty Genovese, the girl who was stabbed to death outside of her apartment with something like 38 witnesses who did nothing to help her.

Despite this very rough beginning however, Dave says at the end of the book that he has moved past all of this and has come to enjoy life very much. He is obviously doing very well for himself, and who else could deserve a worldwide best-seller more than this man. He has two other books documenting the chapters of his life after the events in this book.