A Child Called "It" by Dave Pelzer | Teen Ink

A Child Called "It" by Dave Pelzer

October 29, 2014
By Silmag16 SILVER, Wilmington, Delaware
Silmag16 SILVER, Wilmington, Delaware
6 articles 0 photos 0 comments

A Child Called “It” by Dave Pelzer
A Child Called “It” is the first book of Dave Pelzer’s sequel.  There is also A lost Boy and A man named Dave. The first book however is my favorite. The book will either fall underneath the category of nonfiction or biography. In the story it’s about a little boy named David who gets physically abused by his mother. David is the author, and the events that take place is about what happened to him as a child.
Many of the things happening in this book are actual things that can be happening to other kids today. When I read the book it really made me feel like I was in Dave’s shoes by the way he described and detailed everything. There is so much imagery in the book it actually made me cringe just by the thought of some of the events that happened to him. I never would have imagined the things that happened to him to be real, yet in fact things like that do happen in today’s world. His mother in the beginning of the book is very loving and caring but then soon changes drastically.
Dave has two brothers, Ron and Stan. He had his mother named Catherine Roerva and his father named Ron Pelzer. His brothers usually ignored him, and his father was rarely home. Whenever his father was home though, he felt a little more secure. One Christmas when his mother told him he wasn’t getting any gifts; his father was the one who had bought him some. Yet he wasn’t able to enjoy the gifts because his mother refused to give them to him. His parents started arguing a lot later on, to the point where they separated.
This book was extremely interesting to me. It was one of those books where you want to keep reading and don’t want to put it down. I would always catch myself reading until the middle of the night on a school night. It has many details; you can picture yourself there with Dave. You would not be able to believe the horrible things his mother did to him. For example she made him sleep in the garage. She would forget to feed him so he would starve, beat him, burned his arm on the stove, made him swallow ammonia, eat his own puke; put his face in a dirty diaper and much more! This book is mainly about how he got so abused physically and mentally through the ages of 4-12 until his teachers finally stepped in and he was free from his mother and was put in a foster home. It also made me think about not knowing what situation a kid might be in until I got to know them. You never know what someone is experiencing unless you are there with them. If a child is getting abused and don’t say anything it could lead up to worse things.
This book was fantastic, yet pretty sad. I still would recommend many people to read it.



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