The Lost Boy - Book Review

The Lost Boy

The book that I have chosen covers the topic of child abuse and lives that children of abused families' lead. This book shows how a child is moved out of the only home that he has ever known to several foster homes. On his journey he learns how to communicate in a society. He learns the dos and they don'ts. He learns what it is like to be part of a family and to have friends. Most of all he learns that he is not the bad child that his mother made him believe that he was.

I selected this book because I thought it would be interesting to learn more about this topic. It is not often that ones hear of such extreme abuse. It is almost unimaginable that someone could treat his or her child like this. I also had often heard from many people that this was a really good book to read. It turns out that they were right.

Imagine a young boy who has never had a home. His only possessions are the old torn clothes he carries in a paper bag. His only world is isolation and fear. Although this young boy has been rescued from his alcoholic mother, the real hurt is just beginning - he has no place to call home. This is Dave Pelzer's long-awaited sequel to A Child Called "It." Answers will be exposed and new adventures revealed in this compelling story of his life as an adolescent. Now considered an F-child - a foster child - young David experienced the instability of moving in and out of five different homes. Those who feel that all foster kids are trouble - and unworthy of being loved just because they are not part of a real family - resent his presence and force him to suffer shame. Tears and laughter, devastation and hope: all create the journey of this little lost boy who desperately searches for the love of a family.

Dave's mom is a brutal alcoholic mother who has a cold heart and no sense of love or affection anywhere in her being. Her character is despised by the reader because of her unmerciful and heartless nature despises her character. She relentlessly puts Dave through torturous punishments and cruel games that seriously harm him physically and emotionally yet bring her twisted pleasure.

A teacher rescues David from his abusive mother early in the book. He is than forced into a system that provides no stable home life. David is moved from home to home and can never find the stability he desires so much. "The first two ultimate rules of being a foster child...were never to become too attached to anyone and never to take someone's home for granted" (221). David is forced to jump form school system to school system and is consistently picked on by other children because he is different. Even some naïve adults refer to David as "that little F-child". Friends for David are few and far between and most of the time he is alone, left to think about his past and how it must be his fault.