A Child Called "It": One Child's Courage to Survive

by Dave Pelzer

book data

14,266 ratings, 3.97 average rating, 2,678 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		38%
4		31%
3		20%
2		6%
1		2%

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published

September 1st 1995 (first published 1992) by HCI

binding

Paperback, 195 pages

isbn

1558743669 (isbn13: 9781558743663)

description

This book chronicles the unforgettable account of one of the most severe child abuse cases in California history. It is the story of Dave Pelzer, who ...more

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08/12/07

Laura rated it:

bookshelves: fiction, overrated

Read in January, 2000

recommends it for: The very credulous

This book is very likely made up from start to finish. The events in it read like Pelzer imagined the worst child abuse possible and then said, "And it all happened to me!" Yeah, right. His brother said in an interview that it was all rubbish, too, which casts more doubt upon the whole thing. Pelzer also bought his own book in bulk so the sales numbers would put it on the bestseller list -- he just doesn't have a whole lot of credibility. Perhaps worse than the fact that Pelzer is prob...more

Like this review? yes (18 people liked it)

16 comments

03/10/08

Eric rated it:

bookshelves: abuse, addiction, memoirs, mental-illness

this book was the 'hostel', or 'saw IV' of memoirs. i don't really know why i read it. it was free, first of all. and, i guess like any normal human being, i cannot look away from a trainwreck.

'a child called it' is not very well written. you walk away with more questions than you do answers. you don't really learn anything. you do, however, come away with having read some very disturbing and disgusting passages that describe in detail a case of horrendous child abuse. i'm ...more this book was the 'hostel', or 'saw IV' of memoirs. i don't really know why i read it. it was free, first of all. and, i guess like any normal human being, i cannot look away from a trainwreck.

'a child called it' is not very well written. you walk away with more questions than you do answers. you don't really learn anything. you do, however, come away with having read some very disturbing and disgusting passages that describe in detail a case of horrendous child abuse. i'm not exactly sure what the book's intention is. it doesn't work very well as a memoir. there is no advice that would put this in any sort of self-help category. and if its intention is to provide hope to victim's of abuse, i don't know what the take-away is other than 'if i lived through this, you can live through just about anything'.

i really don't know what to make of this book, as a piece of literary work. it's not much of one -- i don't know if it ever set out to be one. you get little, if any, insight into the dynamics of the brothers. you read one moment that the narrator hates his father, then loves his father, then hates his father. you read that the narrator cannot remember the color of his mother's hair or eyes, yet he describes in great detail many settings, images, etc. you really don't get any insight into the mother's descent into mental illness and alcoholism. one day she's the best, most loving mother in the world, the next she is straight out of a bosch painting. you get a feeling that pelzer is being very selective with what he shares with us. characters are never anything but inherently good or inherently evil. he's either being abused horribly or being embraced lovingly. there seems to be very little grey area in pelzer's book. the grey area is exactly what needs to be illuminated in a book about abuse. we learn far more from a book about becoming an alcoholic than we do from a book about being a drunk. the latter is voyeuristic and exploitive, the former can illuminate and possibly save lives.

there has been quite a bit of controversy surrounding the accuracy of this book. i can't speak to that. there is a blurb about the book being up for the pulitzer at some point -- pelzer submitted it himself, which anyone can do. details like this do nothing but add an aura of snake oil -- the dime-store self-help book jacket design doesn't help matters.

the last thing i'd want to do is come down on a dude who's lived through the type of hellish abuse described here. even if his descriptions were 1/10th true, it would still be more than any human being should have to endure. i am not claiming that this guy did not suffer, but we need more from books than a simple retelling of events. we get that in the newspaper every morning. (less)

Like this review? yes (17 people liked it)

13 comments

07/18/07

Becky rated it:

bookshelves: nonfiction

Read in May, 2008

I've sat with this book on my desk for a couple weeks, unable to decide what I would write for a review. I'm wholly torn between this being one of my most-asked-for and least-favorite-ever titles. I wish the amount of times I heard "this was the first book I liked" (and the amount of times it's been billed/stolen from the library) corresponded to its quality, but I truly found it very short on redeeming qualities. Eric's Goodreads review says pretty much what I would say.

T...more

Like this review? yes (9 people liked it)

13 comments

11/24/08

Jennifer rated it:

bookshelves: 2002, bad-bad-bad, biography

Read in April, 2002

Why the hell did I pick this book up? It was depressing as hell and it was poorly written. It chronicles the abuse this little boy named David went through as a child. And I think abuse is too mild a term for what he went through. It was horrible. Reading the torture he endured at the hand of his own family was painful.

I came away from this book depressed. And I had several thoughts that kept running through my head. What was the point of this book? It almost seemed like a shrink to...more

Like this review? yes (6 people liked it)

6 comments

03/23/08

Kohei rated it:

bookshelves: school-year-book

A Child Called "It" HCI, 1995 $9.95
By Dave Pelzer ISBN 1558743669
One very common issue that goes around in our world is child abuse, it happens everywhere and it is something that is horrible and cannot be stopped. Dave Pelzer, the author of the autobiographical book, A Child Called It, shows the very dark corners of child abuse by viewing to the readers his horrific life as a young boy living with his mother that constantly abused him.
Dave Pelzer, who lived w...more

Like this review? yes (7 people liked it)

9 comments

07/05/07

Kiwiria added it

bookshelves: 0-stars, 2007, biographies, non-fiction, not-owned

Read in January, 2007

I did not like this book. But that's okay. You're not supposed to like it. It's a horrible, horrible book. A trainwreck of a book. I wanted to look away, but just couldn't. I know it's the first part in a trilogy, but I doubt I'm going to read the other two books. It was too, too depressing.

Actually, the person I got most angry with was the father. The mother was obviously sick and needed help. There's no other explanation for the awful things she subjected her son to. But what's the...more

Like this review? yes (5 people liked it)

4 comments

10/19/07

sandiie rated it:

Read in January, 2008

recommends it for: future/present psychologists, caring people <3

A Child Called "It":One Child's Courage to Survive
Dave Pelzer
Health Communications, Inc., 1993, 153 pp., $9.95
ISBN 1-55874-366-9

Have your parents ever abused you? In The Child Called "It", a true story that can bring tears to the eyes of anyone with a beating heart, Dave, the protagonist, is abused in the most horrifying ways possible. What kind of mother would want to hurt their own little child? David's mom's actions can prove that wrong.
...more

Like this review? yes (4 people liked it)

10 comments

09/28/07

Nate83 rated it:

This is a book about a child his name is David. He is telling about his life when he was young. He had three brothers and mom and a dad. His dad was a local firefighter and his mom was a stay at mom kind of person.
They had a really good life they went on vacations and had picnics.
He looked up to his dad and loved his mom very much. He use to been able to play with his brothers but his dad stared to not come home because of his job he had to stay there 24/7. So his mom started to tak...more

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07/19/07

Briynne rated it:

(review of isbn 0752837508)

Easily the most terrifying book I've ever read. I think I had literally repressed the memory of it, until I randomly happened across the title this week.

I experienced this book in a fairly odd way, during a week-long cheerleading camp my sophomore year of high school. My coach was reading it and somehow ended up reading the entire book aloud to my squad during breaks and at night. Once she started, we were all addicted and spent every free moment listening with rapt and horrifie...more

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03/27/08

`. kateelynn * rated it:

Oh my god, what can I possibly say about this book? When I first started reading this book last year, I was just so hooked to it and I just wanted to know everything about this book. It was all about this author's childhood gone horrible with the extreme abuse, the torture and suffering. I really couldn't believe my eyes, the author described like, everything he went through, all the pain he had to go through, how he felt and everything. I could really understand how he felt but one thing about ...more Oh my god, what can I possibly say about this book? When I first started reading this book last year, I was just so hooked to it and I just wanted to know everything about this book. It was all about this author's childhood gone horrible with the extreme abuse, the torture and suffering. I really couldn't believe my eyes, the author described like, everything he went through, all the pain he had to go through, how he felt and everything. I could really understand how he felt but one thing about this book I don't get at all is how his own mother transformed from a loving mother to a nightmarish, abusive mother so quickly. I mean, the author was only, like a little boy when his mother started abusing him.

This book is extremely emotional and can make you feel so bad for the author and even cry so. This book was all about the author's childhood and how he survived through such abuse, starvation, and neglect. This also showed how bad things happen to good people - the author's own father didn't even help out at all - he was once a fun, loving fireman, turned into an alcoholic, carless father.

The only way for the author to get help was through school but the only thing that kept him from telling the school the truth was his fear of his mother going after him and make his life last through hell forever; even though the school sort of already knew, from all the bruises on him, him stealing the children's food because of hunger, from his mother starving the author and how he constantly uses identical/unreasonable lies about his bruises and wounds. He was pratically stabbed in the belly and had to go through such pain. His faith and hope kept him going & he never let his mother win this sick game.

In the end, he told the school the truth and he was finally taken out of the horrible home, with the abusive mother, two brothers that weren't treated horribly at all and the careless, alcoholic father - and put into a much better home - foster home. I loved this first book so much that I even continued on to the next book!
A lot of thanks goes to my teacher, for lending me the books - it's one of my most favorites!(less)

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03/16/08

Sammy rated it:

bookshelves: the-best

Read in February, 2008

Okay, this is going to be a short and sweet review since it's a non-fictional autobiography and you can't really critique things like characters and story. But I'm going to say what I can...

This book was a hard one to read yet I couldn't put it down. There's a different something in Dave's story that will keep different people reading. Mine was: Why? I wanted to know why his mother did this. I wanted to know what made her do it. I wanted to know how she could to it. And I want...more Okay, this is going to be a short and sweet review since it's a non-fictional autobiography and you can't really critique things like characters and story. But I'm going to say what I can...

This book was a hard one to read yet I couldn't put it down. There's a different something in Dave's story that will keep different people reading. Mine was: Why? I wanted to know why his mother did this. I wanted to know what made her do it. I wanted to know how she could to it. And I wanted to know why it was Dave she picked out of him and his brothers. What made Dave the one she singled out for such monstrous torture. But that's something people involved in child abuse cases ask themselves every day.

You really do feel for Dave. You don't feel with him because there are moments so bad that he has to disconnect himself. I couldn't do that while reading it though. I almost felt that if I could send my anger and frustration and sadness and hope out there it would stop. Of course it was foolish of me seeing as it happened many years ago and he's a grown man who escaped his mothers claws.

I was only annoyed by the fact that the book was too short and that dividing his story into three seperate books seemed unnecessary. Especially because by the end the reader has become so invested in Dave and feels like they're such a part of his life, they want to go with him as he continues on to the next, hopefully happier chapter in his life. Perhaps it was a publishers marketing scheme to get more money or something. Goodness knows it wasn't Dave's. His goal was to tell his story, thank those who helped him, and open a door to shed light on an issue that is often hidden away. All of which he accomplished magnificently.

What we learn in Dave's story is that child abuse is real. It comes in many forms, but it's out there and it's up to those of us in the lives of children to stand up and be the voice for the abused. Another thing we learn is to not back down in that fight, of course there will be road blocks, but if you champion for a child as those special people in Dave's life did, you can help. You can save a life, heart, and soul. You can give a child hope.

This book is a must-read I'd say. I of course went out and got the follow-up (I hate to use the word sequel with something like this) and read it right away. That's a review to follow later. If you are debating about reading this book I will just say that it is a hard read. If you're a mother it will probably be especially hard. If you have a deep compassion and love for children it will probably be hard. If you yourself have experienced abuse it will probably be hard. If you just have a heart it will be hard. But don't give up. It would be even harder to just quit in the middle, trust me on that. It's that end, despite being a beginning, that will bring tears to your eyes and a much needed smile to your face.(less)

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08/04/07

Whitney rated it:

recommends it for: Someone unbelieveibly gullible.

I'm pretty sure that the book should have been called.
A Child Called "It”: One Child's Courage to Survive...to Write a Craptastic Book.

Call me heartless, but I hated the book. Not because it was sad, because it obviously bullshit. I don't really see the point of writing this book, the only thing I can think of is publicizing his past child abuse... and the point of that is? Well to make money, he didn't attempt to write a book that's going to help anyone, he wrote ...more

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09/14/07

IF I HAD ONE WISH IT WOULD BE TO COME BACK TO CITY rated it:

Read in December, 2008

recommends it for: To anyone that read it

WHAT I LEARNED FROM THIS BOOK IS THAT IS WHEN UR PARNETS DO SOMETHING TO U AND U DON'T LIKE IT AND U KNOW THAT U IS GET MISS TREADED TELL SOMEONE THAT WELL HELP U AND ANOTHER THING DO RUN AWAY FROM HOME.........

Like this review? yes (4 people liked it)

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11/22/08

Lei rated it:

Read in November, 2008

recommended to Lei by: my drama teacher
recommends it for: anyone who likes to read

This book was really sad. The fact that it was a real story made it way sadder. At one point when i was reading the part about the bathroom and mirror treatment, i almost cried. I can't believe that anyone would do such things to their own flesh and blood.If i was David, i would have tried to run away or tell somebody at my school of the things that were happening at home.
The person that i actually hated more that the mother in the book was David's father.How can you sit around watching a ...more

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

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12/31/07

Carrie rated it:

bookshelves: effed-up-memoirs

Read in June, 2008

recommended to Carrie by: Ron
recommends it for: my friends

I know it's not nice to burn, stab, poison, starve or otherwise torture your kid, but damn! If THAT can't motivate a boy to do the dishes in less than half an hour, how's he ever gonna learn?!

Seriously, though. I'm enjoying this short little autobiography from a "glad it wasn't me" perspective. The only problem is I can't believe a book so poorly edited became a New York Times Bestseller. The man uses commas like they're going out of style and uses "everyday" ins...more

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04/08/09

Neaka rated it:

Read in January, 2004

recommended to Neaka by: my aunt. even though she didn't know what it was about.
recommends it for: nobody under the age of 11

I really don't know what to say about this book. It was amazing, depressing, horrible and heartbreaking all at the same time. I remember when I read it too. I was at my cousins house in LA, and I was bored, so my aunt when into my cousin's room and found me some books. A Child Called "It" was one of them. I still recall how I sat there in my other cousin's room, completely devoured in it. I was in fourth grade, so I don't think I fully comprehended the severity of what happened to Davi...more

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12/13/08

Trevor rated it:

bookshelves: book-club

Read in December, 2008

recommends it for: EVERYONE

I read A child called "It" for my fifth book report. This is a heart wrenching true story about the author of the book when he was a kid. His name is David Pelzer and he is the main character in the book. He gets abused by his mom everyday without a break. She takes her frustrations out on him for no reason. It is one of the saddest books I have ever read. In parts it is so sad you hardly hold back the tears for the pain that this little kid is feeling. It is even more sad becau...more

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02/13/09

Audreyparra rated it:

bookshelves: book-club

Read in January, 2009

Wow this book was amazing! I think.. well I know this is the best book I have ever read. Its about a six year old boy that lives with his mother, father, and two brothers. His dad, a workign guy barlety at home. His brothers are older then him, so he got teased. His mother was a good mother at first, in his early ages. As he grow up she started to beat him and scream at him. He goes through this for many years, adn sometimes his mothjer went to far. I Liked this book because it shows you what mi...more

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04/27/09

Laurel rated it:

(review of isbn 1402505272)

bookshelves: memoir, nonfiction, psychology

Read in May, 2009

YIKES. This is a man's account of the severe abuse he suffered as a young child through the hands of his mother. Apparently, there is some doubt on whether the story is actually true, or whether the author merely made the whole thing up. I don't know enough about the controversy to speculate, so I will just give the author the benefit of the doubt and assume this is indeed a factual memoir of his childhood. If that is the case, then he most certainly deserves major admiration for having ove...more

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12/27/08

Arrianne rated it:

Written from the point of view of the abused who writes a first person narrative with an adults comprehension of events that happened to him as a child.
Whether or not the account is exaggerated or not, the way this book is written makes it very tiresome.

I think this book has gotten a lot of people's attention and I feel that's definitely a positive thing, but the downside for me is the book accomplishes little else. It just seems like a very public rant or "dump" for ...more

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