Book Review: A Child Called "It"

At the suggestion of a friend, I recently checked out A Child Called "It": One Child's Courage To Survive by Dave Pelzer from the library. I have to admit... As disturbing as this story is, I couldn't put the book down, and I read the entire thing over a two day period.

Now, I must warn you first off that this book is not a work of fiction. This is a REAL LIFE ACCOUNT of one of the worst child abuse cases in California history...AND it happened locally to where I live! O_o

This chilling tale tells the story of a young boy whose mother falls deeper and deeper into the throes of alcoholism and slowly becomes more and more physically and mentally abusive - banishing him to live in the basement as a slave, demanding he do all the housework in half an hour's time if he wanted to eat anything (and usually never up to his mother's standards; often going for days at a time without being fed), being beaten within an inch of his life day in, day out for years on end... And these are some of the TAMER details of this grisly story! This isn't even touching on the mother forcing him to lay underwater in a bathtub of ice water for hours on end with only his nose out of the water to breathe; forcing him to drink ammonia and standing by and watching him nearly die; mixing together Clorox and bleach and creating a gas chamber in their bathroom and making him sit in there (and his only hope of survival was figuring out he could dip a washcloth in water and hold it over his nose and mouth and trying to breathe through that, after which he'd still cough up blood); making him lay naked over a gas burner; even at one point STABBING the child. And the mother convinced the school, neighbors, EVERYONE that the child was hurting himself for attention and that all his allegations of abuse were the result of jealousy of a new baby brother and that he wasn't to be trusted as he was a trouble child. How this child managed to survive is beyond me, but eventually he was rescued by the CPS, thank god. Still...

This book is a huge eye opener to the dark world of abuse that thousands of children have to endure every single day. Of course, many children aren't as lucky as David and are never rescued, and some of them don't survive. It really makes a person want to do everything they can to help these kids in need.

If you feel you have the stomach and the heart to read it, I actually highly recommend this book. The author actually went on to write several other books: The Lost Boy: A Foster Child's Search For The Love Of A Family, A Man Named Dave: A Story of Triumph and Forgiveness, The Privilege Of Youth: A Teenager's Story, Help Yourself, Help Yourself For Teens: Real-Life Advice for Real Life Challenges, and Moving Forward: Taking The Lead In Your Life. I'm strongly considering reading more, if not all, of his other books too!