Customer Reviews

The Lost Boy: A Foster Child's Search for the Love of a Family

5 star:		(282)
4 star:		(34)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

David Pelzer is a 12 year old boy who tries to be a good boy. He goes to school in clothing that has holes on it. He wears the same clothes each and everyday. His mother abuses him daily. She had new ways of punising him everyday. The Mother mainly abused David when they were behind the closed doors of their home. David had to perform chores before and after school. David was not allowed to eat unless his mother decides to give him one of his brothers left over food. His mother turmented him daily.
This book had a very big impact in my life because at first I thought it was funny, but to actually hear that someone was really getting treated the way David was broke my heart.This book has action. It gives you descriptions of how his mother tortuered him. You can actually visulize it happening. This book has a very good pace because it's not fast and it's not slow. The Lost Boy had me so emotional. I felt so bad for David. You should read this book because you would love it. You may even get a collection of David Pelzer's books. This book is based on a true story.

This book is a continuation of the book "A Child called it." It is a true story about a boy named David Pelzer who barley survived his mothers many tortures and close death experience, and trying to be accepted as a foster child and live a normal life. All he wanted was to be loved and accepted by the other kids.
This book is so sad but real. Child abuse happens all the time to children, right underneath our noses. There are so many foster children all over the US than don't have a real home, and that kids tease for being a little different. This book shows how surviving in school and the world as a foster child is very difficult and sometimes seems impossible.
I love this book and think that it is a real eye opener to the world that child abuse still happens and that we need to stop it. It also shows the people that think that child abuse is the children's fault that it is absolutely not. They have no control or say in what their parents want to do to them. It is so sad that the children could possibly be blamed for their parents beating them up because the parent(s) might have (a) drinking problem(s), married issues, etc.

I finished this book so fast and I haven't finished a book this fast in a long time.

I was devastating at the terrible accounts David Pelzer went through. The beatings, the burns and torture was too much, but the eating of feces was way too much. I was angry and embarrasses by his mother. I could never think of treating my twins or the child that I am carrying like this. This book makes me want to love my children even more and try to be a better parent. I feel that all parents should take the time out to read this book and then give it to their children; one of my twins are very interested in reading this book and I am going to allow him to read it. At the age of 9 he is a very avid reader, due to my encouraging and as I think about it, that is one of the things David's mother should have been encouraging her son to do instead of beating and stabbing him to death.

I am very eager to read the other two parts of David's story, which I am going to do as soon as I get my hands on them. I encourage you and everyone you know to read this book. I also would like to know if there is a movie available too.

Later.....

I belive this is the best book I have read in the whole sixteen years that I have lived.I think that what Dave's mother did to him that she should be put in prison and never be able
to get out.I don't see how anyone could be that low to do some thing like that in parts of the book I just wanted to beat the hell out of his mother. I don't see how she could do that to anybody. (expecially her own child)!! I loved the book and recommend everyone to read it.

In the book the lost boy Dave Pelzer was abused as a younger kid. He was burned, beaten, starved and mistreated. Dave was stabbed in the chest by his mom when he was only 6 years old and after that he was put into foster care until he was 18. For the six years he was in foster care he was arrested a few times. For the first year he was having a problem with getting overly attached with his foster parents. He was with good ones but also with bad ones. This whole opportunity was given to him by his school nurse and his parole officer. Dave never saw his real family again except his dad whom he saw when he was about 15, a year after he began foster care and he lit the school on fire because of his parents were divorced and his father became a fire fighter. I would recommend but first read A Child Called It!

After reading _A Child Called "It"_ yesterday, I devoured _The Lost Boy_ today, not leaving the house until I finished. I'm so glad Pelzer decided to share his tale and to tour the nation improving and helping other's lives. The books are pretty well written (aside from the many grammatical errors that seemed to slide by his editors).

My only reservations and major disappointment is Pelzer's want for leaving the reader "hanging." As readers suffer along with little David through _A Child_, we too ask the big question along with David, "WHY? Why is this happening?" Pelzer alludes that the answer will be revealed in the next book. After finishing _Lost Boy_, the reader is cheated of David's revelation! What's worse, not only does Pelzer allude to the answer, he purposely wrote about it at the very end without telling the reader the answer: "As an adult I came full circle. One of the things I accomplished was visiting my mother and asking her the most important question of my life: Why? Mother's own secret made me cherish the life that I lead even more."

What was the answer? The reader will still not find out! This is a cheap writer's trick that forces the anxious reader to buy yet another book. I feel cheated in this carrot game. The reader has suffered along with David long enough and shouldn't have to buy the THIRD book to receive answers that only puts more money in the writer's pocket.

Obviously, I think both books are worth reading. But if you're looking for answers, you won't find them here!

In addition to being one of the saddest books I have ever read, it is also one of the most beautiful books I have ever read. Dave has consistently survived the most extreme forms of abuse (his story makes Dickens' fictional accounts of abuse sound tame by comparison) and come out a winner. He is truly a Godsend, a gift and the voice of inspiration for many. He is living proof that abusive cycles can be broken. That hackneyed excuse about abusers having been abused themselves is a dodge and a cop out for irresponsible behavior. Not all abuse survivors perpetuate a defeatist cycle. Dave didn't and I don't think Dave is unique. Common sense, a conscience and pleasure in enriching people's lives certainly occupy the forefront of my mind. Dave appears to have made that same priority heard and felt in his works. Dave wisely made that decision and it has really taken him far. As for Dave, KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK! It would be an honor and a pleasure to hear this incredible person speak.

It's a good read, but I really hate to think I [had to purchase] not one, not TWO, but THREE of this guy's books to find out what happens ... This guy is a MOTIVATIONAL SPEAKER! This is how he makes a living! The books are fairly good, but full of inconsistencies. The title book, A Child Called It..... is a good example. Only once does his mother call him, "IT"....but if you buy his last book in the series the phrase is peppered throughout... Another example I found was in the profound memories this 4-year-old child has. Nobody thinks that way as a kid.....who remembers details so vividly at the age of 4!?!... I know this guy suffered some form of abuse, it is recorded in the county records, but as the episodes morph into more bizzare forms of punishment as you buy each installment, I think there is a bit of exaggeration going on here. One point in the last book he writes that his own wife doesn't believe him. Well, no wonder. The story just keeps e x p a n d i n g...

This is an excellent book. You have to read A boy called it first , then this one and then the third one is a man called Dave. This triology is excellent.

Between the authors David Pelzer and Katlyn Stewart's true to fact novels about child abuse, and no one hearing- I have cried actual tears from the power of these books.
They are must...MUST reads...Lost Child, A Child Called It and Nightmares Echo. Read the power of the human soul!