Have any of you ever read the book, “A Child Called It”? I remember reading it about a year ago and it really touched my heart. I don’t understand how anyone could treat their child this way, but alcohol makes you do strange heartless things.  The story is basically about one childs courage to survive. David Pelzer’s (the author) child abuse was recorded to be the third most severe in the state of California. He endured both physical and mental cruelty to his emotionally unstable. Alcoholic mother Catherine Roerva. He was brutally beaten, starved, and tortured so much that his mother no longer considered him a son or a boy but just “it”.
I was watching an interview of him with Larry King and its so sad because even now when hes an adult he says he still loves his mother, he says she was a wonderful mother a wonderful cook, but it’s the alcohol that changed her.  I think its really unfortunate how much drugs and alcohol can alter and ruin a persons lives, and others aswell.

I never read this book but I remember a teacher reading us a few paragraphs in class. And it was horrible. I guess he had to fight to live and fight for his food. And from what she read to us his mother bought him new clothes for the school year but it was just one outfit and she made him wear it every day for the rest of the year, even if they got torn and smelly. And he was only allowed to eat his brothers left over cereal and only if he finished all of his chores. He was rarely allowed to eat dinner. School was the only hope for him and he would steal food from there because he was so hungry. His mother I guess caught on to this and made him throw up because she suspected he had been eating more than she had been giving him. She saw that there were chunks of meat in his throw up so she scooped his vomit up from the toilet put it in a bowl and made him eat it. She said something like, if he was able to steal food he deserved to eat his own vomit. And she stood there and watched him eat it all.
My teacher read this to me maybe about 6 years ago and I still remember it perfectly. Thats such a shock and I can't believe anyone could get treated this way.

I actually read the book, and the sequal and the third book.  David Pelzer grew up to be a very good man and has a family of his own now.  After he left home and was put in foster care, his mother started treating his siblings the same way, abusing them horribly.  When he was an adult, he went back to his mother to talk and seek closure.  And she still never said sorry.  She was just a sick person. And his father was a coward.  He never stood up for his son, even once. 

I really dont understand why social services didn't just take ALL her kids away not just David, a woman like that is a danger to everyone around her and needs to be in a mental institution.I wonder what she thinks now, when there's a book written about how horrible of a person she is. And if she still does drink, if any of his siblings talk to her.