Child Abuse. What do you think about it? This book is one of the saddest stories that I have ever read. I have had some of my friends read it and they say the same thing. My sister recommended this book to me and I took a shot and read it. I have read this book so many times and it never gets old. This is a story about a little boy named David.
When David was about three years old he had a great life. Their family was the most perfect thing. They would go everywhere, parks, picnics and even trips to a river. The parents were madly in love and they did everything for their kids. When David turned about 4 years old, that’s when the mother went crazy and started abusing David.
At first the mother wouldn’t let David talk to his siblings, and she was non-stop with him and chores. The dad can’t help him anymore because the mom will blow up and they fight. David is the only one abused in his family. The mother has her own little games that she plays and her own special beatings. One little beating is the mirror treatment and the soap. The mirror treatment is where she smashes his face in the mirror. The soap treatment is where she shoves a bar of soap down his throat.
Those beatings were the most common along with the kicked, punching and hitting. Throughout the chapter she would just abuse him with those treatments until she thought of more. Her next little horrible thing was to not feed him, well only feed him his brother’s leftovers.
One day she left David starve for about ten days! David didn’t have a name anymore all he was called was that boy or bad boy. At this time the father would try and try to help his son but he just couldn’t. All he wanted was food. At school he would steal food from other kids and they got suspicious and he got caught. Every time he got caught for something the mom would abuse him even more.
He then would steal from the grocery store, but that didn’t work out. The mom had read somewhere about putting your kid on a stove for something. When David got home from school one day she had the stove heated. She tried putting him on it, but then he wasted time from a short plan in his head and he was saved as soon as one of his brothers walked in. The mom had another baby so she was out of the house for a couple of days and he was so happy that his dad was there to feed him.
The mom takes everyone on a trip to the river again, she brought David but he still did chores and she tried making him eat a dirty diaper, but again someone from his family walked in and he thought he was saved. Then they walked out and then his mom made him eat it. When they got back it was just same beatings for a while and then the mom threaten to kill David with a knife in her hand if he didn’t do his chores right. He knew she wouldn’t do it because he was threatened all the time, but this time his new brother was playing on her leg and she lost balance and actually stabbed him in the stomach.
He knew it was an accident because the look on her face. He was lucky because his mom took a class on nursing and after that she was a nicer to him. He still had a lot of chores but no beatings and he got a little of food and water. After he was healed she started again.
This time she sent the father away and he got beat even more. In the end the nurse would always check David everyday at school because he would always have bruises and finally David ran away. David was abused for six years. This is an inspirational story about a young man’s life.
