A Child Called It by David Pelzer Book Analysis Essay

A Child Called It written by David Pelzer, is about a young boy below the age of 12 getting mentally and physically abused by his mother. David Pelzer’s abuse that he went through as a child is in the top three worst documented child abuse in the history of California. He was outcasted from his own family, in the beginning his brothers would give glances and encouraging smiles. But, as time went on the smiles went away and they started laughing at him and David didn’t think of them as his brothers anymore. David got rescued when he was in 5th grade, he got picked up at his school by the police and never went back to live with his mother again.

The pros about this book is that the word choices that David Pelzer’s uses doesn’t make it hard to read and understand. You feel as if it is written from the young boy’s perspective and not from David’s perspective as an adult looking back at a terrible time that happened to him. When his vision of the superhero in a red cape disappears it also disappeared for you too. You feel connect to the character and when he would lose hope in someone I did too. You read about all the horrific acts that his mother inflicted on him and it really touches you as you are reading. But, because of this writing style we read about David getting abused. We read about what would happen, how he felt, and what his reaction was. As a reader that doesn’t read lots of stories about child abuse this was very difficult to get passed. Having to hear how his mother forced him to drink ammonia, held his arm over a burner, made him go days without food, and eat his own throw up, was something I wasn’t expected.  I would never want to think about someone going threw this, but you have to also read about what he thought as it was happening.

This is a very intense book and I don’t believe that it should be on the approved reading list by WJCC.  Going into reading this book I knew that it talked about child abuse and what happened to him. What I didn’t know is how in detail David went when describing the abuse, he received.  There are many other books that can talk about people over-coming their challenges and surviving and those books don’t talk about child abuse. Child abuse is more common then what people think and you can’t always tell if a student is getting abused or got abused in the past. If they were given this book to read they would being having to read these terrible things and it would remind them what happened to them. In the first chapter of the book its David getting rescued, in that chapter we learn a little about what is going on in his home life. In the next chapter he talked about before his mother started treating him that way and we just imagine them as a happy family. By the time a student would realize that the book may be to intense for them, they would have to get to chapter 4 and that is 30 pages in. So, if the teacher has their students read this book that student would either have to read a different book and be on a different page then the rest of the class or they have to keep reading a book that is too intense for them.  This book has a very strong power and influence theme to it. David’s mother had all the power in this family and she knew that. She was able to control what everyone thought and their actions. Because she had this power she would influence what David’s brothers would think. After awhile of hearing their mother yell at David, say he’s not apart of the family, punish him in horrible ways they just believed that is the way of life in their house. They started to get David in trouble more, bring friends over to laugh at him, and not think of David as their brother and more as the family slave.  

What is interesting about this book and this family is that there is still much of the story that we wont every know. His younger brother Richard Pelzer also wrote a book about abuse that he received when he was living with his mother. He also admitted that David was telling the truth when he said Richard would help his mom get him in trouble. The brothers have only met up once all together after David was taken to foster care. They met for their mother’s funeral, and they find out that she had left David out of her estate money. But, they split up the remaining money with everyone after paying all the bills. Their grandmother, Ruth Cole, has talked about what she believes went on in that house behind closed doors. Ruth does believe that David was abused but she does think that what he wrote in his book was exaggerated. But as it goes for Richard, she does not believe that he every got abused.  This was from Bella English’s article “Family feud” Tensions surround brothers’ competing memoirs of abuse, April 26, 2006. Stephen Pelzer a younger brother of David said that he never got abused by their mother and that he always wanted attention to himself. Stephen believes that David was sent away because he started a fire and was shoplifting.  Pat Jordan, article “Dysfunction For Dollars”, July 28, 2002. There are different sides of the story. If what David is saying is true then his brothers just stood by and watch and would help their mother abuse him. Which would give a reason why his brothers would want to dis-credit the book. But, there is also the side of where David is just doing this for the money and the fame and that he never got abused at all. 

Overall, I give this book a 6.5 out of 10. I believe it deserves this rating because it was too intense to be listed as a children’s literature book. With all the ways he describes what happened no child should read that. Also, even though he wrote the book about himself we don’t know how credible it is because we were not there. It was a interesting book from the beginning to the end but it’s not a book I would recommend unless you want to read about child abuse.