Horrific Experience in A Child Called It by Dave Pelzer

A Child Called It is a book written by Dave Pelzer. Dave writes this book as an abused child who went through horrific experience. In the first part, he writes how he was horribly beaten, and even forced to swallow his own vomit, ammonia, and even soap. Dave writes about the horrors children go through when abused. A Child Called It is an unforgettable account of an abused child who was brutally beaten, burned, starved, and tortured with an unstable alcoholic mother. A child Called It is an incredible emotional story where the author describes how he endured unthinkable suffering and abuse from his own mother who hated him for no reason. Dave provides a detailed account of the neglect and abuse as well as the emotions, struggles, and the pain he had to cope with in order to survive. Later on Dave was able to be freed from his hateful mother and the hell of life he was living in.

A Child Called It is written from a child’s perspective. Dave’s book is an eye-opener on how children are abused by even their own mothers. Child abuse is not something new in our society as I t occurs everywhere. Many cases of child abuse stay unreported, as the society and the people around do not care (Crosson-Tower 47). This book is about the struggles of a young boy who was put through hard times. Dave was a victim of child abuse for a period of about 13 years, when he was removed out of his abusive home. Dave was treated badly compared to his brothers but he never gave up but fought to rise above it all. Even though he had lost hope in his dreams and doubted humankind, Dave was able to overcome this trauma and make his life better.

Dave and his brothers Stan and Ronald lived a normal happy life while still young. They lived happily with their m...

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...ngs. He bruised his son and created many scars on his body but Dave was determined to live. He says, “Mother can beat me all she wants, but I haven’t let her take away my will to somehow survive” ( 4). He was abused by his mother and treated les than human, but Dave never ceased to preserve his own life and sanity. Dave struggled to stay alive in a house he was unwanted and mistreated. He was treated like an animal, but Dave still struggled to stay alive and overcome all the abuses from his mother.

Works Cited

Pelzer, Dave. A Child Called "It": One Child's Courage to Survive. California: Health Communications, 1995. Print.

Pelzer, Dave. A child called “it.” An abused child’s journey from victim and victor. London: Orion Books Limited, 2008. Print.

Crosson-Tower, Cynthia. Understanding Child Abuse and Neglect, 9th Edition. New York: Pearson, 2014. Print.