Dave Pelzer's A Child Called It

In Dave Pelzer’s A Child Called “It”, the author writes about his own abilities to persevere through his mother’s hideous abuse. He uses his willpower, imagination, courage, and faith in God to retain his motivation to survive in situations many people could not. David suffered unthinkable abuse whilst in the care of his mother. Many people could not imagine going through the ordeals he had to suffer through.

Although the reading level of A Child Called “It” by Dave Pelzer wasn’t difficult, processing the horror of the events that inspired the story was. People who experience traumatic situations can often recall the events with sharp clarity, which is exactly what Pelzer did. Riddled with grim details, the text takes readers on a journey through Dave Pelzer’s troubled early years. Through his meticulously documented experiences, readers get a perfect view into the torture that shaped his childhood. Although painful, the descriptions give students the opportunity to make observations and apply different approaches about development to Pelzer’s harrowing tale.

The book I read is called A Child Called It. It is written by Dave Pelzer. The theme of this book is to keep hope alive. You should have faith and dreams to have something to look forward to in your future especially when you feel you can’t go on any more. Like Dave, he felt trapped as if he was never going to be free. He used his dreams and illusions every time he was hurting to help him get away from the pain. This is what kept this little boy alive. He had something to reach for and never quit.

Peter's Lullaby, is the most disturbing true story I believe I have ever picked up and read, and such child abuse and heartache and pain of a child's memory of abuse that is clearly unimaginable. I thought I understand what child abuse is, but reading this book in detail, it's not only what I have heard or seen in the news or in new paper articles of a child being shaken to death which is ungodly in itself. The abuse the author, Jeanne Fowler and siblings, went through daily, including seeing her little brother slowly murdered by her parents is beyond understanding. Her mother didn’t hang pictures on the wall, in her abuse of her children she hung them on walls, in closets and bathrooms, for days at a time without food or clothes. It was her brother, Peter's lullaby hushed Jeanne, which he would sing after a beating to comforted her and himself, to allow them to sleep. Jeanne would listen

A Child Called “It” is a powerful book written by Dave Pelzer about his childhood and the hardships he encountered with his family, peers, and community. Middle childhood can be a life altering point in a young child’s life, which many theorist have studied over the years. This paper will review a few of those theorist thoughts, and how their theories apply to young David’s childhood. The theorist work that will be covered will be Bronfenbrenner and his ecological systems model, Piaget’s theory of development, and lastly Kohlberg’s theory of moral reasoning. It is important to understand what was going through David’s mind as he dealt with this trauma and how he was able to survive it.

I am writing to you to protest the School Board’s proposed banning of the book A Child Called “It” by Dave Pelzer. The book spent six years on the New York Times best-seller list, was an international best seller, and received a Pulitzer Prize nomination. As an award-winning author, Mr. Pelzer has shared his true-life story based on a childhood where he received physical and mental abuse by his alcoholic mother.

This paper evaluates how David Pelzer develops in his memoir, A Child Called “It”. Pelzer is evaluated using Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems model, Piaget’s theory of cognitive development and Kohlberg’s theory of moral reasoning. Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems model demonstrates how Pelzer’s environment impacted his development greatly. Pelzer is greatly influenced through others by how they treat him. Throughout this memoir, Pelzer is in the concrete operations stage of Piaget’s theory of cognitive development. The reader is also able to see Pelzer’s development from preconventional morality to conventional morality using Kohlberg’s theory of moral reasoning.

Dave Pelzer’s book, “A Child Called It” (1995), chronicled the unforgettable accounts of one of the most severe child abuse cases in California’s history. The book is an intriguing, yet intimidating journey through the torturing childhood of the author, himself. The child, Dave Pelzer¸ was emotionally and physically tormented by his unstable mother. He was the victim of abuse in his own home, a source of ridicule at his own school, and stripped of all existence. This book left me in suspense as I waited with anticipation for the end of this little boy’s struggle to live. Throughout this paper, I will focus on the events that took place in this book and discuss my personal feelings and the effects this story had on me.

The Book A Child Called “It” written by Dave Pelzer who survived one of the most severe child abuse cases in history. He wrote about his life from the beginning when family life was good, and throughout the abusive years, until he was finally rescued. Before kindergarten Dave remembers his life being happy. He stated in the book that, “"My family was the 'Brady Bunch ' of the 1960s. My two brothers and I were blessed with the perfect parents. Our every whim was fulfilled with love and care." But in the years after that he faced unimaginable pain and abuse mentally and physically.

The definition of abuse is when someone uses cruel and violent treatment to negatively affect a person repeatedly. Abuse can come in a variety of ways, such as psychological abuse, mental abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, and one of the most common yet overlooked is sexual abuse. In the book A Child Called IT, David Pelzer writes the story of his childhood. A child whose whole life was surrounded by abuse, his mother would beat him and hurt him in such a way that she left him almost dead in several occasions. Sharon olds wrote a series of poems that all seemed to link up together after reading them consecutively. I go back to May 1937 is dealing with changing her existence, Little things is about focusing on enjoying small things,

David Pelzer, the main (and perhaps only) protagonist, has struggled with a lot throughout the book I read. The story is mainly about Dave’s determination to withstand his abusive, alcoholic mother, who will, without a second thought, beat him if he doesn’t get his chores done. Even if he does get all of his chores done, he is starved and forced to sleep on an old army cot in his basement while his family lives in the luxury of the upstairs section of the house. The writer, Dave Pelzer, changed the names of his family to keep their anonymity, which was nice of him due to what goes on in his story. This essay is about a book called A Child Called “It.”

When a child experiences trauma, it stays with them for the rest of their life. When a child experiences abuse, one of the highest forms of trauma, they can do little to stop it from affecting everything they do. Tobias Wolff’s memoir, This Boy’s Life, Illustrates this. While it can be said that Rosemary, the mother of Jack, was in many ways responsible for his life, she herself can not solely be blamed. The trauma and abuse she experienced as a child contributed greatly to her choices, and her son’s life. This shows that adversity in Rosemary’s life lead to her not being able to act normally, and this caused the life of her son.

A Child Called “It” is written by Dave Pelzer, it is a heart breaking story of one little boy who despite the trials he faced, overcame it all to tell his story. The book is based on him growing up in a home where his mother “selected” him to be her personal slave as he explains. But that was only when it was starting. Now due to his courage, and the bit of faith left inside him, he lives to tell how his experiences have shaped him and to also thank the teachers who selflessly risked their jobs for him that day.

A Child Called It, is an astonishingly horrific true story of “one child’s courage to survive”. Once said “Such a story cannot fail to move.” this is exactly how I felt about this book. Dave Pelzer the author and protagonist of A Child Called It tells the story of his life as one of the worst seen cases of child abuse in the state of California. Dave’s mental strength and resilience is what truly drives the theme of the story and the physical and mental abuse that he had to endure.

My personal reactions to the book The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog, were positive and enlightening. I would describe my reactions as enlightening because the content was written in a different perspective than I originally expected. This book is a small memoir of the author’s growth and development as a psychiatrist working with children suffering from severe trauma. It is rare to find a book so informative and practical and yet inspiring to read; I’m glad this was a required piece for this course.