A Child Called "It": One Child's Courage to Survive

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Summary: A Child Called It book review
Review: A Child Called it is a book that will give a reader chills. This is a story of a young child's will to survive his mother's demented mind and actions. Davis Pelzer tells of the
absence of love and appreciation in his life.
In order to finish this book, the reader has to keep the beginning in mind. If the reader doesn't, the terrifying scenes will enable them to finish this book. Because of
such scences, younger children should have parental permission before turning the pages.
Dave Pelzer has an extraordinary ability to describing ability. The vivid words
and sentences convince the reader that there are there with the small boy. The reader endures loneliness, pain and anguish along with the child. David Pelzer tells of his
agonizing days, of just hoping to wake up. With no help from anybody he was able to escape his horrible life and live as a normal person.
The only downfall to this reading is that he gives no explanation of his mother's actions. Without these explanations it leaves the reader confused and worried. It also
makes the reader want to read the sequels.
This is an inspirational story that has touched many readers including us. David wrote this to show that child abuse does exist and should not be ignored. Children battle
this abuse everyday. David Pelzer gives readers the ability to realize that you have to make a difference.
We give A Child Called It by David Pelzer 5 stars.

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Summary: a child called it
Review: A child called it is an extrodinary book about the worst child abuse case in California. Its about Dave, a boy who get beaten by his mother. she tortures him in ways most of us wouldnt even dream of. she doesnt even think of him as part of the family, she sees him as a slave, not a boy, but an "it." His only means of living are his hopes and dreams of someday not being there. He knows he has to stay alive, and he plays her games.

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Summary: A Great Book
Review: I'm only 14 but when my older sister recommended this book, I was not interested. When I finally got to read it, I was overwhelmed. I didn't believe that this so called "mother" beat her own flesh and blood like that. It sounded so brutal. I cried when I was reading it.

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Summary: A Heart Touching Story
Review: A Child Called "It" is an incredible story about a man named Dave Pelzer. He tells the story from a child's point of view. It is the unforgettable account of one of the most severe child abuse cases in California history. Dave was brutally beaten and starved by his emotionally unstable, alcoholic mother-- a mother who played life-threatening games with her son. His mother stopped considering him as son. He soon became a slave. Dave's bed was an old army cot in the basement. When he got the luxury of eating, it was usually the leftovers that even the dog would refuse to eat. His clothes were the same every day for months on end. The only thing that kept him alive was his dreams and hopes of the day that someone would take care of him, love him, and call him a son. This book had me wondering how a mother could treat a child in such a way. I would give this book a four and a half star rating. If you are looking for a heart touching story, then this is a book for you.

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Summary: A Child Called It
Review: We read the novel A Child Called It. It was a very emotional book for us but at the same time we found it hard to put it down. Our expectations of this book before actually reading it was that it was a book that focused soley on the negative side of abuse. Not to say that child abuse is not negative and that the book makes you feel any differeltly, but the way we comprehended this book was that the writer, Dave Pelzer, was not wanting the reader to feel sorry for him and focus on all of his wrong doing in life because of this tragedy. Yet he was wanting the novel to be his way of saying look what I overcame and I am still a good person, father, and husband.
At times we did find this book hard to read. The graphic incidences that he describes going through is unreal to us. We feel that these incidences were not told to make anyone feel sorry for Dave or to disgust anyone. Yet they were told to say yes these are awful things, this is what happened, and this is how I survived. We think that if a person had been abused as a child or as an adult, this would be an extremely hard book to read but still a beneficial one. One group member actually saw a TV interview with Dave Pelzer and he made the comment that even today he does not hate his mother. He said that he has forgiven her for what she did to him. We think that takes an extremely strong person to feel this way. This is exactly how we felt this book was written, not with hatred for abusers, but written to show strength and inspiration for survivors.
This novel really opened our eyes because none of us have ever been faced with this type of situation. Often times people feel like these sort of things do not really happen, unfortunatly they do. Even reading this novel, we caught ourselves thinking of the events as made up or untrue. When we reflected on the book we realized that this did really happen to the child and he could have been in our class. We have to open our eyes and realize that this does happen in real life and we need to know what signs to watch for. What if Dave's teachers hadn't helped him? Where would he be now? We only hope that we have the stregnth and courage that Dave's teachers had.

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Summary: Read it in one sitting!
Review: I was stuck. It compelled me to read on though I felt I must not. Then it rewarded me with lessons of the heart for reading it. I had to hug the kids tighter and see them more clearly.
note: Its content is a bit deep if you have been touched by abuse-bringing you a few stings of the familar. Yet healing as well.

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Summary: ohmigod!!
Review: this book is tooo good!! It's very descriptive. I can't believe that it's a true story. it leaves u hanging on the last page!!

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Summary: A Child Called It
Review: This autobiography is written in journal style and brings a whole new light on the subject of child abuse. Abuse is a universal problem that may exist in places you least expect. As future teachers it horrifies us to think that such things could happen to children we care so much about. Many abused children, like David Pelzer, have thier innocence stripped from them as their wall of security crumbles. This book also showed us warning signs to look out for. David's teachers did not comprehend his situation until they were almost too late. We suggest every future teacher, social worker, or any child care provider read this book.

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Summary: Ultimately Unfulfilling
Review: Nobody would doubt the potency of Dave's tale. The facts are hideous and how a child could survive such torture is a comment on the sheer courage and determination of the writer. But as a literary work I was disappointed by this book, and I'm surprised Dave's editor didn't pull him up on a number of things before it went to print. The fact that the writing style is average can be forgiven, for after all, the facts speak for themselves. But there are fundamental bad things about this book; there is no hint as to why his mother committed these heinous crimes, for example. At first we see her as a kind loving mother, but then suddenly, in the space of one chapter, she is a monster. What happened there? There is no attempt to explain her motivation. Did something happen in her life that tipped her over the edge? Or was she just a nutcase since birth? The father is the same ... no attempt to explain his abominable behaviour while his wife treated his own son like a dog. Worse still, there is no resolution in this book. By the end you are desperate to find out what happened to the mother and father. Instead, the reader is left hanging, and we are told to "buy the next book in the trilogy." That's a little deceitful considering the whole story centres around this woman. We want to KNOW what happened. Not completing this tale like this is akin to getting to the end of an Agatha Christie and the last page says: "Buy the next book to find out whodunit!" I give this book three stars on the subject matter alone, but it didn't need much work to make it a five-star effort. Disappointing.

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Summary: Unbelievably heartbreaking.
Review: I bought the book and had it read in 1 day. The book was unbelievably touching. There were some cases where I had to put the book down because it was to hard to sink the words in my head. Never in my life would I have ever thought that a mother would abuse her child that way. I believe that everybody who has a hard stomach for this type of thing should read the book. They won't be able to put the book down.