The book, “A Child Called “It” is an absolutely heartbreaking, true and unforgettable story. It is about David Pelzer, who had an alcoholic mother who starved, mistreated, and viciously beat him. Catherine Pelzer (his mother) did the most unbelievable and cruel things to David that she thought of as a game. All of the things she did to him left him nearly dead. She made him the family slave, who wasn’t even recognized as a family member anymore. She made him sleep in the basement with no warmth, made him wear the same disgusting, ripped clothing everyday, forced him purge all of his lunch from school to prove he hadn’t eaten anything all day when he got home everyday, made him drink ammonia and Clorox, stabbed him with a knife, made him eat his baby brother’s diaper, choked him, locked him in a small room filled with ammonia and clorox that resulted in deadly, toxic fumes, and beat him brutally, nearly every day from when he was 5 to about 12. The mother is obviously at fault with the crime, but so is David’s father. He began to try to help David when he just started to get abused but eventually his father couldn’t take it anymore and just left
To me, the “big idea” of this memoir is that child abuse is just terrible and very upsetting. There was a lot of things I did and did not enjoy about this book. What I did like was that David survived, and now is a very successful man. He is very inspiring and just so amazing. What I did not like about the book is how upsetting it was. Before I read this book, I knew nothing about Dave Pelzer or his story. I now know that his story is very hardcore and to be honest, if I had known this before reading the book, I may not have read it.
This book made me so sad and made me cry so much. There was many things in this book that really got to me, but there was one particular sentence that really got me in this book.
Towards the end of the book, page 154, David is brought to a new middle school. His teacher sends a letter home with him, stating how great of a student David is and how wonderful he is. His mother says,
“‘There is nothing you can do to impress me! Do you understand me? You are a nobody! An it!’
Even though I had heard the same words over and over again, this time the word “It” stunned me like never before.

This quote is important because it really shows David’s feelings. David is definitely at the end of his rope with the mistreatment he is getting. I can only imagine how terrible it must be, and it made me happy when I found out that he survived at the end of the book and was put into a really great foster family.