The book, A Child called “It”, was written by David Pelzer and was published in 1995. David writes about the horrible incidents of his childhood days, explaining the kind of torture he experiences by his mother. He describes the transition of his once happy family of mother, father and brothers into a prison like place. He narrates about how he accustoms to and struggles with painful situations at such a tender age and how he emerges as a successful person in this process. The story is praiseworthy in many ways, for it shows David’s ability to put forth a real life in a brilliant manner, attracting total involvement of its readers.
Coming to details, David starts the first chapter with the happy ending of many brutalities that David suffers in the following chapters (as cited in Lahey, 2003, p. 8). In general, this kind of writing may take away the excitement of the reader, as the first chapter itself tells the conclusion of the story. However, it is remarkable that David’s presentation of each chapter from the first one makes the reader feel like as if he is closely observing the real life of a child. In place of routine enthusiasm, it creates seriousness and involvement in the story, and raises reader’s concern for the suffering child.
As it is about David’s real life experience, there is apparently no scope for creativity. However, the chapter wise construction of the story, taking care to distinguish various phases of his life in the story with cautious usage of words and formats, is excellent. It shows the writer’s control on the language and narration. To be precise, the change of his mother’s attitude from loving and caring to cruel is explained through his change of calling her from ‘Mom’ to ‘Mother’, stressing the words with capitals (as cited in Lahey, 2003, p. 9). Likewise, his position in the family changing from a ‘son’, ‘the boy’ and finally to ‘it’ not only indicates the severity of torture faced by David, but also the writer’s expertise in explaining it (as cited in Lahey, 2003, p. 10, 12). In short, timing of words and phrases is well maintained.
Nonetheless, David is a happy kid in the beginning, with love and affection from mother and other family members (as cited in Lahey, 2003, p. 9). Slowly, the scene turns unbearable for David, being targeted by his mother for all bad reasons. However, as David starts realizing things and struggles to get out of them, he becomes more determined to survive. With the gradual loss of family’s support, especially father’s, David grows up as self-relying. At times, he becomes innovative to escape his mother’s ill treatment (as cited in Lahey, 2003, p. 12-3). The courage with which the boy faces situations and consequent happy ending for his terrible phase show that no matter what kind of trouble we are in, a strong will to fight with odds makes us find happy days again.
Except alcoholism, the writer does not mention specific reasons for the unexpected and violent change in his mother’s attitude. Also, his father is shown to deteriorate from a great admirable person to a hopeless man. It somehow highlights the adverse effects of liquor addiction, which in this case have led to total demolition of a lovely family. Selective mentioning of severe experiences seems advantageous in correctly conveying the writer’s perspective. Like, she treats her own son like a war prisoner (as cited in Lahey, 2003, p. 11). Her outrageous treatment of David intensifies with her orders for David to do acts like consuming his brother’s soiled diaper (as cited in Lahey, 2003, p. 10).
All in all, it is heartening that the story actually happened in David’s life. Anyway, his story seems to be laudable in at least two ways. He seems to be impeccable in detailing the horrible events from his childhood experiences as if they are occurring in front of us. At the same time, he successfully conveys the message that determination and courage can make us survive and succeed in life. The appearance of David as happy grown up man with one kid raises confidence in life for readers.
References
- Lahey, L (2003). Monkey Notes Study Guide: A Child Called “It” by David Pelzer, 1995.
- PinkyMonkey. Com. 1-18.