The Child Called "It" by Dave Pelzer

February is "biography month" for Books and Beer Club. We select each month's month at the previous month's meeting. If people don't come with several titles in mind, we pull out our phones and start throwing out names. One person suggested we read one of the Trump or Hillary books. Nope, we're not going political. Whew, that's a relief. What about a Jesse Owens book? After all, it's Black History Month. There are several books about the Florida woman who started Tupperware. Local interest as well as biography.

Another member and I had been browsing lists which proclaimed themselves to include the top (10, 100, 101...) biographies you need to read. She saw The Child Called "It" pop up on two of the lists. "Hey, here's a book I was supposed to read in college. And it's short." That's how our February book was selected. (I need to check old lists from my community book club. I think this might have been suggested there too awhile back.)
The book was short (less than 200 pages on my iPad with a reasonable font-size. It was also a quick read... but definitely not an easy book to read. It's autobiographical, covers Dave Pelzer from the ages of about 4 to 12, and it's written in a child's voice. Dave Pelzer's life as a victim of child abuse is one of the most extreme cases documented in the state of California. This book is a narrative of what took place and how young Dave struggled to survive.
Beyond the obvious question of how a mother can treat her son in such a horrific way, I was left with many more questions. How did Dave's father allow this to happen? Didn't he have any wish to protect Dave? I wanted to protect my kids every time their father hurled angry, belittling words their way. What about Dave's grandmother? Was she too afraid of her daughter to do anything to remove Dave from the dangerous situation he was living in?
Had times changed so much from the early 1970s to the late 1990s when I began my teacher training? We were given so much instruction on what to do in suspected cases of child abuse. I'm sure handling and reporting has evolved over that time. But we're teachers instructed back then to just look the other way? I didn't find it surprising that the substitute teacher was the first one to show Dave compassion.

While thought provoking, I'm not sure why this was a standalone book. I can see where it can be used as a case study for a college or graduate class. But for an non-academic reader, this leaves far too many of my questions unanswered. In fact, I've already got Book #2 in the series (there are 3 books in total) on hold at the library.