Analysis Of A Child Called It By Dave Pelzer

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“When I was given the luxury of food, I ate like a homeless dog; grunting like an animal at Mother's commands. I no longer cared when she made fun of me, as I hurried to devour even the smallest morsel.” According to children abuse statistics in 2014, 702,000 children were victims of child maltreatment. Of those victims about 1,580 children died. These numbers included physical, sexual, and emotional abuse and physical and emotional neglect. A memoir by Dave Pelzer call A Child Called “It” is a perfect example of how a domestically abuse child's life could be like. When Pelzer was really young his family and him lived a perfect life in their house, but things then started to dramatically change. His mother became alcoholic and like Pelzer called …show more content…

This memoir is the first of the trilogy of Pelzer's courage to survive. “He was born in San Francisco, California, as the second of five boys, to Stephen Joseph Pelzer and Catherine Roerva Christen Pelzer.” Pelzer was the one that got chosen from all his brother to feel the wrath of an alcoholic, crazy mother. He was only four years old when his life went from a warm summer to a pure cold and dark winter. His abuse lasted until he turned twelve and was then placed into foster care, but that part is in his second book. A Child Called “It” is written in a child’s viewpoint; “the tone and vocabulary reflect the age and wisdom of the child at that particular time.” The way the book was written is excellent because he is telling his life story as a kid, so writing how a kid that age would write only makes the reader imagine more of the experiences he went through. Plus it is easy for the younger audience to understand what they are reading, and not asking what a word means every two minutes. His technics and his story is what makes him truly special. Even though his story has touch many people's heart “there has been controversy over some of the abuse Pelzer details in his books, and both his maternal grandmother and his brother have disputed …show more content…

Pelzer called food a luxury that he barely could put in his hands. His mother starved him for days at a time and when he was given food they were scapes that like Pelzer said, “even a dog wouldn’t touch.” Pelzer had to work for the food that he desperately desired all the time and he said that, “On a good day, I was allowed leftover cereal portions from my brothers, but only if I performed all of my chores before going to school.” A lot of times Pelzer didn’t perform his chores on time, so his only source of food he got most school days were the peanut butter sandwiches he got for lunch. Pelzer didn’t even know dinner still excited because his mother would always “forget” to feed him dinner. Because Pelzer didn’t have a good source of food at home he made plans to steal food from his classmate lunchboxes but after a while they found out, and they called his mother and he was punished as usual. Pelzer also stole from the grocery store close to his school a couple of times, but got caught and his mother was notified. His other plan was to eat the leftovers that were thrown in the trash can. One day he ate leftover pork, and he got diarrhea because his mother said that it was spoil pork that she purposely threw away for him to eat. One of his plans that got one of his worst punishment was to steal frozen meals from the school cafeteria and he did. When he got home

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