A Child Called It” By Dave Pelzer is about his real-life story on how he faced more abuse then ever imagined starting at a young age. Dave’s mother was an alcoholic and acted out towards Dave. She would refer to him as “it” and caused emotional and physical pain on him for years. For some reason his mother treated Dave less then a human, but at the same token took care of the rest of the family. At one point Dave’s mother forced him to drink ammonia, and starved him until he ate his own brother’s feces. Like any other child Dave wanted nothing more than to be nurtured by his mother, but she always made him feel unworthy of himself. As you can imagine, Dave was very distance from the rest of the family because he was being abused while the rest of them were treated basically normal. I am sure you wonder where his father was when all this was going on. Well, his father was a firefighter and was often away at work. Dave was scared out of his mind to speak out and because of this he wouldn’t tell his father what was going on. At the same time his father was scared to speak to Dave’s mother on the way Dave was acting. He knew what was going on, but seemed to put his blinders on because of fear also. The book leaves the unanswered question of “why?” Why did his mother snap? One minute she was loved Dave and the next she would snap. Why did his dad stand by and not rescue his son? Understanding the catalysts is as important as the abuse itself. How could anyone do this to their child? Child abuse is harm to, or neglect of, a child by another person, whether adult or child. Child abuse happens in all cultural, ethnic, and income groups. Child abuse can be physical, emotional - verbal, sexual or through neglect. Abuse may cause serious injury to the child and may even result in death. The further back in history one goes–and the further away from the West one gets–the more massive the neglect and cruelty one finds and the more likely children are to have been killed, rejected, beaten, terrorized and sexually abused by their caretakers. Like “A child called it,” and “Please Stop Laughing at me: one Woman’s inspiration story, is also about how she went through school getting abused and shunned by her classmates. This started as early as elementary school and followed her through high school. Both the books open your eyes on how harsh abuse really can be and by speaking out how much it can help in the long run. As a teacher reading this book makes me realize the abuse that really takes place in the world. It also showed me how a child might act if being abused. This helped me open my eyes while teacher because not every family is happy. This book is very emotional, but should be read by everyone. It shows the audience how he survived when things were really bad.