Book Report:
A Child Called “It”: One Child’s Courage to Survive

An inspirational story titled A Child Called “It”: One Child’s Courage to Survive was originally written by David J. Pelzer and published in 1993. It was then reissued in 1995. This memoir spent five years on the New York Times bestseller list because it is an effective way to communicate the issues of child abuse and alcoholism. It also deals with internal motivation and the will of a child to remain strong, even though nothing was going his way. A Child Called “It” is set throughout the late 1960’s and early 1970’s in Daly City, California. This real-life story starts with March 5, 1973, the day that David Pelzer’s life was saved by his school’s administration when he was in fifth grade. It gives glimpses of the life he has lived thus far, but there is no explicit detail. The reader sees that David’s mother beat him, starved him, treated him as a slave, and even stabbed him once. The school nurse, who began to check up on David daily when he was repeatedly late for class, wrote a report of the bruises and scars left on David. She told the principal, who gathered two of David’s teachers, and they decided to finally call the police after hearing enough. David did not want to get his mother in trouble, but by the end of the first chapter, David was free. The memoir then fades into David’s past, starting when he and his mother, Catherine Roerva, had a close relationship. It also talks of his father, Stephen Joseph, and his two brothers, Ron and Stan. Catherine was a beautiful woman who deeply loved her family and cooked meals for them every night with love. The family was very close and often took trips. David’s favorite trips were to the Russian River. That was the last the reader hears of the love he was shown as a child. The book immediately jumps to David’s first grade year, when the beatings began. He now refers to his parents as Mother and Father. Mother was a heavy drinker by this time, and Father was always away at work. During the days, Mother would watch television. This was the time the beatings first began, during commercials. After time-outs no longer served as punishment, David would be forced to stand in front of a mirror with his arms straight down to his sides. His face would be bashed against the mirror as he was told to shout, “I’m a bad boy!” Mother used many brainwashing forms of punishment in order for David to think he deserved the treatment he was receiving. Ron and Stan never got beaten or even yelled at for that matter. This is an introduction to the abuse he suffered. As the years went on, the punishments got worse. David was hardly ever given food. He picked food from the garbage, stole from the grocery store or children at school, or ate his own regurgitated food after being forced to show Mother what he had eaten when he wasn’t supposed to. David had to complete all his chores on time in order to receive a decent meal, which wasn’t likely to happen. He was forced to drink ammonia, drink dish soap, eat his baby brother’s defecation, sit locked in the bathroom with a mixture of ammonia and Clorox, bathe in freezing cold water for hours at a time and have to sit in the cold air outside, stabbed on accident when he didn’t complete his chores, set his arm above a gas stove until it caught on fire, sit in his Prisoner of War position (sat on his hands with his head all the way back) until Mother let him up, and he was taunted and beaten by his brothers and others at school. He was not allowed to sleep with the family. He was the outcast who slept downstairs on an old army cot. He was an “it.” This book deals with a severe case of child abuse and a child’s hope that it would one day come to an end. It was his strength and will power that led David to become the man he is today. This memoir is an extreme and personal look into his life. He did a very good job at keeping the book flowing and keeping the reader intrigued.