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The Lost Boy: A Foster Child's Search for the Love of a Family (平装)
by Dave Pelzer
| Category:
Teens, Family love |
| Market price: ¥ 148.00
MSL price:
¥ 138.00
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| Stock:
Pre-order item, lead time 3-7 weeks upon payment [ COD term does not apply to pre-order items ] |
MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
Heart-wrenching, uplifting, powerful ture story about a boy and his hard and long journey of seeking family love. |
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AllReviews |
1 Total 1 pages 10 items |
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A reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-07 00:00>
I have read this book and the first book, A Child Called It, a thousand times. I love them. These books capture the reality and truth of an abused boy. In the first book his alcholoic mother almost kills him in several ways(making him eat his brothers poop, sitting him on a hot stove, not letting him eat unless it had ammonia on it) I love this book. I have bought both books and look forward to Dave Pelzer's upcoming book A Man Named Dave. I am only 12 years old . I look at this book as an actual play taking place in front of me. As I read I can see this going on. It makes you almost wish that you could go in and save this boy. The Lost Boy is based on David Pelzer from ages 12-18 when he is in foster care. He has at adverage4-18 foster homes a month. This book will bring you tears, love, determintation, and leave you with a new perspective on foster children. You will see it in Dave's eyes.
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Sara Swihart (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-07 00:00>
When I met Dave Pelzer a few years ago, you could see the chips still in his teeth from his head being slammed against the counter. He showed off pictures of his wife Marsha and his son Stephen. Also in his wallet, his father's badge, which choked him up as he talked about it.
This 2nd book in Pelzer's trilogy follows his journey through California's foster care system. I learned a lot about his past and how his abuse affected his adolescent life, a time that is tough enough if you've had a pretty good home life. I didn't find this book as captivating as the first, but this one will still grab your attention. I knew that he'd made it out okay and had made something positive out of his life, but just following him until he found his 'home' with his final set of foster parents. I can only imagine how difficult it must have been to have all of those attachments just severed.
My favorite line is one of the last lines in the book, "Aboard my first plane rise, I opened my eyes for the first time as a man named Dave."
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A reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-07 00:00>
After reading A Child Called IT, I could not help but read the lost boy. And now after reading the lost boy I can't wait to read A man called Dave. The lost boy was about a boy who went through the worst childhood anyone could ever image, or even wish upon anyone else to go through. This book only covers from ages 12-18, which is a lot more pleasant that what he went through the rest of the years. After his school realized what had been happening to David, they called the police and social services and was taken away from his mother. When his mother discovered that David had revealed the family secret she was ferious. But she couldn't do anything to him, they went to court and he was warded to the state until the age of 18, so his mother couldn't get to him. Over the next five years David was stiched from foster home to foster home. A few of the places he became comfortable in but that for one reason or another was taken away. Over the years his mother had said that he was a bad child and that no one could love him. She had said it so much that he belived it. At first he would would have nightmares about her coming to take him back to "the house." His nother had a certain power over him, that was hard for him to get away from. His mother got visitation rights, so she would go and visit him at the home where he was staying, but most of the time she wouldn't even talk to him. She would talk to his foster parent and tell them to be careful because he would try to be sneaky, and that he was such a bad child when he lived with her. When she visited him she never called him by his name, instead, she would call him "The Boy." Around age 17 or 18, David hadn't talked to his father in so long that he decides to go and find him. David ends up finding him, but when he does he is not the man he remembers. He is a drunk and he has no love left in his eyes. His eyes were dark and lost. Reading this book made me realize how strong David was. He had the worst childhood that anyone could ever imagine, and he is still alive and kept his faith through it all. |
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A reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-07 00:00>
This book and the previous A Child Called It provide an engrossing view of child abuse and the needs of those rescued from its grip. It is most helpful precisely because it comes from the point of view of the child as he is living it rather than from well-meaning experts who look from the outside in. As the guardian of a formerly abused youngster, I was particularly interested in the emotional stages that David went through after his rescue. His skill in expressing his own frustratation with himself and his reactions to those who wanted to help him is extraordinary. His story has helped me to help my own "foster" son and to better understand what he has gone through even though he himself cannot yet explain much of his behavior. I hope he will someday feel comfortable about reading The Lost Boy and perhaps telling his own story after the wounds of his experience have become less raw. I anxiously await the third book in the series, for I wonder how the final healing has taken place for Mr. Pelzer. What has happened to his parents; did he ever learn why his mother behaved as she did? How has he learned to parent his own child in the absence of a proper example in his childhood? I think the answers to these questions might show the way for many like him who are even now struggling not to survive, or to find a family, but to heal.
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A reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-07 00:00>
The Lost Boy
The book The Lost Boy, by Dave Pelzer, was a very excellent book. It is a sequel to another one of his books, A Child Called It.
It is a true story about the author, Dave Pelzer. He writes about his childhood and how he spent nine years of his life moving from foster home to foster home after being removed from his abusive biological mother's home.
The book was well written and easy to understand. There are very few words that are really complicated. The plot of the story was easy to figure out; the story was also very easy to follow. The book is very emotional. It would best be suited for young teenagers and adults rather than young children.
David, the main character, really interested me. He managed to keep strong through all that happens to him. He was a very quiet boy as he grew up. He didn't have any friends and never really tried to make any. He was ashamed of what his mother had done to him. When he gets older, he starts to open up more towards everyone.
Roerva, his mother, is a character that really got my emotions going. I could not believe that she could abuse her child like that. She was an alcoholic. All she ever did was drink and beat David. After he left her home, she tried everything to get him back. After she realized that he wasn't coming back, she tried to get him locked up in a mental institute.
Through out the book, all David is looking for is a family, and a place that he can call his home. After being moved around, he just wants to settle down. When he turns 18, everything changes for him. For once in his life he feels he is somebody, he is a man named Dave.
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A reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-07 00:00>
This is a very interesting, heartfelt book. David Pelzer is an amazing human being and his story has made me really understand just what goes through these childrens minds. My sister is a foster mother in Iowa and has adopted 6 of her foster children, all of them abused. I see so much of each and evey one of them in Davids story. Thank you David as hard as it was for you, for letting us in and giving us the chance to understand, if any good came from this let it be known you opened alot of eyes and hearts. I could not put this book down, it made me cry, it taught me, it made proud of this young mans effort to continue. David Pelzer you are a very talented young man and I only wish you the best and happiness in your life.
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A reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-07 00:00>
In this absorbing second instalment of his turbulent life story, Dave Pelzer picks up virtually where he left off in A Child Called It, and fills us in on his development from ages 12 to young adulthood. At last, poor David seems to get a break when his teachers and others risk their careers to deliver him from the sadistic clutches of his alcoholic Mother. In many ways this is a welcome respite from the horrors of the previous book, and therefore not as traumatic and difficult to read. Even still, David's troubles are far from over. His Mother continues to threaten his entire future, and he is pushed from pillar to post through a succession of Foster homes. Some of the people he meets are welcoming and generous, others who seem to be friends end up betraying him, further compounding his loneliness. The full long term effects of his earlier suffering begin to show, and he begins to go off the rails, but in the end the reader is left with a sense that his inner strength will overcome. The book has a slightly more fractured and episodic feel than the relentless, depressing atmosphere of its predecessor, but I guess that reflects David's life quite accurately at that stage. Important to read A Child Called It First for it all to make sense, but essential reading for anyone wanting to know "what happened next"
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A reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-07 00:00>
Thank you, Mr. Pelzer, for writing your heart in this book. As a foster mother of three little ones, 5, 5, and 3, my heart always breaks for what they have seen and what I do not know yet that they have seen or experienced. You have let the world know that all foster parents are not monsters--and in fact, we try very hard to make our homes better and safer than some biological families' homes. The reason people become foster parents varies as widely as the reason children go into foster care. Each child is special and each child deserves the best care and the sweetest love they can receive. I could not put your book down after I bought it at the airport. My heart broke for your loss and your continued struggle to understand why your mother did those horrific things to you and your family. One could quickly blame the alchohol, but my heart ached as you continually tried to uncover what it was you could have done to make things turn out differently. Sometimes, we do not find the answers in this lifetime - your courage and honesty are appreciated. I highly recommend this book to any parent or anyone who is curious about "the system." My hat is off to you, Mr. Pelzer.
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A reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-07 00:00>
Imagine being a child that doesn't have a place to call home or parents to call his own. IN the book The Lost Boy, David Pelzer is the main character, also the author. This real life experience is a history of David's awful life. I not only was interested in his life to read on but I felt that I was in his shoes while I was reading. When I read about David moving from foster home to foster home, only carrying a paper bag with all his belongings, my pupils got huge and I had to keep on reading. I saw no way I could stop reading in the first chapter. I ended up reading this book in just a few days.
I feel David had alot of courage and didn't deserve to live this way. I thought in the first book when he got away from his abusize mother that he was free. Than I read this one and some homes that he was in were worse than the one he lived in with his "family." I can't believe that in one foster home that he was in the foster parents allowed him to see his mother. As the police dropped him off at the Catanzes, a new foster home, they tole them that, despite the fact that David's parents did only live down the road, he could have no contact with them. This was made very clear to the new foster parents. The mother in this home, however, felt that David was sad because he couldn't see his mother. (Really he was sad because he didn;t want to leave his other foster home.) His foster mother thought that if she just called his mother and told her how David was diong, his attitude would be better! Wow, was she wrong! When David went to his mother's house on a daily basis, she still beat him, let him starve and told him he was worth nothing. One day while David was at the psychiatrist, he told the doctor that this was going on, and the doctor told his caseworker, and he was switched again.
Daivd could no longer stay at this foster home. He had to go far away from his house and start a new school. I think this is awful to do to a child. Can you believe that the worker didn't take away the ladies foster care license? I think that is crazy; she may do this to another child! I thought the fact that his foster parents called him by his name and not "it" was wonderful. David's parents always called him "it" or "the boy." Although in one foster home David became very attached to Aunt Mary, she started being mean to David and tell ing his he was a no one and then told him they had to switch his foster home because David was getting too attatched to her. As Daivd left her house, he said, " The first two ultimate rules of being a foster child that I had learned while at Aunt Mary's were never to become too attatched to anyone and never takes someone's home for granted")Pelzer 221). How sad is that? This hurts me to know that at the age of 10, David felt that he coldn't become close to anyone because when he did, they were seperated. David builds a layer in him that didn't let anyone in due to the problems he has had. Doing this made even more problems for him.
The part in the book whilch made me smile was when his social worker started crying because she had to switch his home again, the one he stayed at for over two months-his 3rd foster home in half a year. He hugged her and held her close to comfert her. Ddavid had a feeling she was going to react the way she did when she tol him this awful news. This made me smile because what David did was so sweet. He needed that hug, and the bonding time that made this special. Over all, I feel incredibly bad for David. By reading this, I realized that what I have is greater than what most people have. I didn't realize that this could happen to a child until I read this teeth grinding book. Although I thought the plot just carried on, once I put myself in David's shoes, I couldn't believe the punishment a child has to go through while trying to be loved.
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Michelle (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-07 00:00>
I am a 31 year old single foster mother to a 4 year old boy. By chance I saw The Lost Boy in a grocery store & bought it immediately. The insight into the mind of an abused child was invaluable to me. Since then I have purchased and read his other 2 books. The excerpts in the back of the book from the adults involved in Dave's life were especially helpful to me. When things get tough, I go back & re-read them to remind myself that somehow I am impacting my child. I hope that no matter what happens in my little guy's life, that he will remember me in a positive light. These books are painful to read, but shows how it IS possible to beat the odds. I hope that everyone who reads the series becomes more involved in some way, politically, financially or otherwise to make a difference. God bless you Dave.
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1 Total 1 pages 10 items |
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