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Ghost Girl by Torey Hayden
3.5 Stars
From The Book:
Jadie never spoke. She never laughed, or cried, or uttered any sound. Despite efforts to reach her, Jadie remained locked in her own troubled world—until one remarkable teacher persuaded her to break her self-imposed silence. Nothing in all of Torey Hayden's experience could have prepared her for the shock of what Jadie told her—a story too horrendous for Torey's professional colleagues to acknowledge. Yet a little girl was living in a nightmare, and Torey Hayden responded in the only way she knew how—with courage, compassion, and dedication—demonstrating once again the tremendous power of love and the resilience of the human spirit.
My Thoughts:
There is no nice, happily after-after, story book ending to this story of Jadie, a severely traumatized child who had so many different problems they were difficult to decide which was the most severe. It was finally determined that more than one thing may have been responsible for her condition...either separately or together.. She was either psychotic or was being ritually abused by members of an occult group. Torey Hayden was a young professional at the time...the beginning of her career and often found herself being made to feel inadequate by her older, more experienced colleagues who thought that they knew better...and to make mattes worse.... were not open to new ideas about special education and the needs of these special children. Hindsight is 20/20, and we all can look back later and wish we had seen the broader picture. Torey's honesty in writing about her own second thoughts made the story so much more compelling. I don't recommend this book to anyone that would have problems reading the graphic...intense... dirty details about the life and treatment of an 8 year old girl. THIS IS NOT FICTION. I do however, applaud Torey Hayden's courage in telling the story.
