A Child Called "It"

          David Pelzer’s story is one of the most severe cases documented of child abuse in California. This novel is the first of a series describing the horrific events of the child’s abuse. Although it is “easy to read” in literary terms the content makes it difficult to get through. It was difficult to understand how such a caring mother turned into a monster when alcoholism took over. David described her as beautiful when she put on makeup and made up her hair for a day in the park or an eloquently planned day-trip, made so just for the happiness of her children.  The “Den Mother” of the cub scouts quickly turned into a raging animal as she starved David and when he stole food during lunch hour made him throw it up and eat it again. She devised many torture mechanisms even more disturbing, such as a gas-chamber made of combined chemicals which quickly fumed up the bathroom in a poisoning cloud.

          One may think that the parents divorced, but the Father lived at home, witnessing these events. The father also succumbed to the disease of alcoholism and in his deadly stupor of a cycle he remained a by-stander as David silently pleaded for help. Eventually all members of the family began seeing David as an “It” as if the blue eyed brown eyed experiment all over again.

          As written from the eyes of a child many argue that the novel lacks the emotion that is necessary for this topic, but I believe it was written so because David had to become detached and had to rid of his emotions to survive and thus we get this cold account of abuse. Even though there are further contradictions and controversies regarding the series such as the question of how true it really is, I don’t believe it really matters. Children are being abused every day all over the world; in 2007 the overall rate of child fatalities was 2.35 deaths per 100,000 children. So even if David Pelzer concocted some facts, or not at all, it is important to have literature like this to raise awareness of child abuse. I recommend this book to all current or future teachers because they are the links from the home to the classroom, but prepare yourself to grimace and cover your eyes as you read this heart wrenching account.

~Timea Kernacova~