A Child Called It and The Lost Boy, by Dave Pelzer, is a story of a young boy who is sentenced to a life of beatings, poisonings, burnings and many other unspeakable horrors in the world of his crazed lunatic mother. The book A Child Called It, starts out explaining how life was before alcohol and a separation of his parents began in his house. Life was wonderful for Dave; he received toys, watched TV, played with his brothers and was showered with love from his mother and father. His mother was a stay at home wife and his father was a brave firefighter. Everything went south as soon as his mother began drinking excessively as did his father. These things happened when Dave Pelzer was about seven. He started being punished for no reason and these punishments would become worse until they evolved into beatings. As the beatings grew worse and worse, he would go to school with scars and other such scratches and bruises and be questioned by his teachers and staff. Dave would simply reply with a pre-told lie that his mother brainwashed into him. Eventually he was not allowed at the dinner table and began segregation in his own house.

His mother began to refer to him as, “The Boy”, and would treat him horridly. She forced him to sleep in the garage on an old army cot and would have him in fear of even falling asleep at night. She grounded him constantly. She prevented him from playing with his brothers and watching television. He was forced to do chores and other menial tasks as his mother drank alcohol and watched her shows. Suddenly, he was not even allowed to eat food for periods of time ranging from hours to days.

He would then steal food from his classmates and would lose friends. If he was caught, the principal would call home and he would be beaten by his mother. His mother, who was never appreciative of her own imagination, would look towards the newspaper to see what new ways she could torture her child. She would play sick mind games to hold food away from him and tempt him to near death starvation on multiple occasions. With these sick images I end my point while leaving some mystery for the rest of the book.

The Second Book, The Lost Boy, emphasizes on the fact that he went through foster care and his exploits and troubles in the foster care system. Throughout the second book, Dave struggles to fit in and his struggle to fit in ranges from his thefts to posting as a lookout for a “friend” who burned down a classroom. As this book starts out, it flashes back to a period before his freedom from his mother’s torment. After this, he is taken to court to decide if he should stay with his mother or be a ward of the court. Luckily, he is a ward of the court and is sent to a foster care facility. During his time in this facility, he made friends, enemies, was tried and convicted of a felony and served time in juvenile detention.

These books are an inspiration to me because this man has been through hell and back several times in his life. Yet he just kept going in spite of it. A part that stuck out most to me was when, “Mother then ordered me to climb up onto the stove and lie on the flames so she could watch me burn.” This is one of the most sadistic things that she did to him just for her own amusement. The horrible things she ended up doing to him scarred him for life and affected his opinion towards others in a negative fashion where he was in a defensive shell.

I honestly loved the books completely and could not think of other books that has the same impact. It is inspirational yet heartbreaking, with gut wrenching horror. It is a mother, who we all love unconditionally yet she was the devil in the flesh. David’s young mind was poisoned due to this tragic series of events. Yet in spite of it all, he overcame the evil. These books are intended for teenagers to adults. Those who read this would be interested in a story of survival and struggle. I would recommend these books as survival, strength and inspirational stories.