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this was a good book very sad that any child would have to endure these kinds of things but it does happen in life sadly enough. well worth the read.
I bought the trilogy I simply could not put the books down. I highly recommend them.
How does it happen. Oh how I felt for this child. And then the ignorance of the legal system. My heart was torn in two. Child abuse just astounds me. The school dragging their feet along, knowing something was wrong. I cried through this book.
Some of the writing is uneven, the plot a little bit disjointed, but in fairness to the author, he is writing from the perspective of a twelve-year-old boy. However, his positive attitude is truly inspiring, and he has only praise for the social workers and foster parents he dealt with as a child. It's a child's fantasy that holds out even into teenage years, that somehow, being kicked out of a foster home means that they're one step closer to going home, even if deep down, they honestly know that they can't ever live with their parents again. Their needs are completely different from those of girls. The writing style is easy enough to appeal to even a middle-school age child, especially one that is already in foster care. Pelzer's reaction to being placed into his first foster home - literally bouncing off the walls, jumping on all the beds, is perfectly normal behavior for a boy who has been abused. This book is vitally important, because there still isn't much in the way of non-fiction written by grown men who were abused as children. It is impossible for a normal person from an intact Brady-bunch family to understand why a child, placed into a loving and safe second home, would start acting insane and doing everything they could to get kicked out of that home.
At times, boys taken into foster care are doubly abused, by well-meaning caretakers who don't understand the unique temperament of the abused male child. In my view, the system very nearly failed Pelzer by shifting him from one placement to another, often at the last minute. I highly recommend this book to any person considering becoming a foster parent, and for people who are employed as caretakers in group homes or who work with children and young adults in placement.
I also enjoyed this book as much as A Child Called "IT". This also made me cry as much as as the first one. I could not put it down as well.
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