"A Child Called 'It'" by Dave Pelzer

I had heard about this book a long time ago, maybe in college. It is the first of 3 short books (I'm not sure how long, but only 153 pages on the eBook I had) about a man's childhood, and how he survived it.

His childhood had the most horrific abuse. For whatever reason (maybe it will be discussed further in the next 2 books), his mother decided that he was not worthy of human affection. From the age of 4 on he was abused and degraded. He had brothers and they were treated well, but he took the brunt of her abuse. She would make him wash the dishes every night, usually without dinner, gave him horrible punishments like being locked in a non ventilated bathroom with ammonia and Clorox mixed in a bucket, made him vomit anything he ate at school and then eat it, etc etc etc. It was hard to read. At school, teachers and the other kids thought he was just a "bad kid" because he would steal food, smelled terrible, wore old clothes, and didn't do well in school. At one point his mom didn't feed him for 10 days straight. Finally, someone spoke up. They KNEW things were not as they appeared, and called the police. (This was in the first part of the book, before it went back to his earlier years. You don't see him get taken out of his home during this book.) He was 12 at this point, which means he endured all of this during such a tender age.

It seems mind boggling that someone wouldn't have called the police earlier. Someone DID call Child Services, but the mom caught a whiff of it and treated him well for the 3 days before they came, so when the social worker asked if he was treated well he would answer yes. When he said she punished him when he was bad she beat him when the woman left.

As a mother, I don't understand how you can turn your back on a child like that. Child abuse is the most abhorrent thing I can imagine. Even his own brothers started to see him as a "bad kid", and would rat him out. And the DAD. The dad is almost as infuriating as the mom because he just stood by and didn't do anything! How can you watch your kid get beaten, starved, even stabbed at one point, and do... nothing? Wouldn't it be better to call CPS on your own wife than let him endure anything else?

I am intrigued to finish the books, just to see how he survives this. It ends with him saying the Lord's Prayer, and when he said "Deliver us from evil" I got actual goosebumps. This man has a spirit like nothing else I can imagine. 

"The War that Saved my Life" by Kimberly Brudbaker Bradley

My family decided to read this together, and I was excited that for once I finished the book before we met!

Ada is a girl born with a club foot that has been abused by her mother her whole life. Right now it's WWII in London, but Ada doesn't know that because she is kept locked away from society. She crawls for most of her life, because it's less painful than putting weight on that bad foot. But she begins to walk, which is good for her because her younger brother is about to be sent to the country to avoid bombs being dropped on them and she wants to go with him. Her mom says she will never leave this house, even if there are bombs falling on them. But Ada can walk well enough that she escapes with Jamie (her brother). An older boy gives her a piggy back ride to the train that they are boarding. When they get to the countryside, Ada and Jamie are the last people to be picked. In fact, they aren't even picked. The woman in charge of the refugee children hunts down a woman named Susan to watch after them. Initially, she says she doesn't know what to do with children. But she turns it around and they learn a lot together. Ada gets stronger at walking, and begins riding Susan's horse named Butter. Then she makes friends with the daughter of the woman that brought her to Susan. She is a wealthy little girl, and has a lot of horses.

Whenever Susan does something nice for Ada and Jamie, Ada pulls away. She can't let herself get too comfortable, because this won't be permanent and soon she'll be sent back home and treated like less than human. Susan takes the kids to a pediatrician, and they find out that Ada can have surgery to make her club foot more manageable. It will never be totally fixed, but they can make it so she can walk much more easily. She just needs permission from her mother. They then have a big Christmas dinner with some of the soldiers from the air base nearby.

One day, someone comes and digs a bomb shelter for them. They need to put up blackout sheets in the house, and begin to stock up the bomb shelter. Ada sees a man row a boat to the shore and put a briefcase in the sand. Then he pushes the boat away and begins walking to town. She goes to tell the police, and they find the man and arrest him when they see that the hem of his pants are wet.
The Germans begin bombing the coast, and Ada has a panic attack when she needs to go to into the bomb shelter. It reminds her of the cupboard her mom made her go into when she misbehaved. Susan makes the bomb shelter more livable with herbs and candles to make it feel more homey.
One day, Ada comes home to find her mom at Susan's house. her mother takes her home without listening to Ada's protests, and throws away her new shoes and clothes. She tells Ada she can't use the toilet anymore, and that she will never leave her room again.
Her mom leaves, and they hear the bomb raid sirens. Her mom didn't give her any directions on what to do when a bomb raid happens, so she takes Jamie and leaves. They make it to a bomb shelter, but not before a bomb hits nearby. When they emerge from the rubble, they find Susan running toward them. She had realized that she wanted the kids to live with her, and takes them. When they make it back to the coast, they find out a bomb had fallen directly on her house. The air raid sirens hadn't gone off, so if Susan hadn't come to find the children she would have died. Thus, they had saved each other's lives.
THOUGHTS
I had never thought of someone being grateful for the destruction of WWII. Especially when it came to children- children's stories in regards to WWII are heartbreaking. But there may have been people in Europe that were in a bad situation, and the disruption was what they needed.
In Europe back then, people hid their children that had disabilities. It was a source of shame. It is just sad that she didn't need to be disabled, because even back then they had a corrective surgery.