Abuse Books

A Child Called "It": One Child's Courage to Survive

Dave Pelzer

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Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Memoirs

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1927 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

David J. Pelzer's mother, Catherine Roerva, was, he writes in this ghastly, fascinating memoir, a devoted den mother to the Cub Scouts in her care, and somewhat nurturant to her children--but not to David, whom she referred to as "an It." This book is a brief, horrifying account of the bizarre tortures she inflicted on him, told from the point of view of the author as a young boy being starved, stabbed, smashed face-first into mirrors, forced to eat the contents of his sibling's diapers and a spoonful of ammonia, and burned over a gas stove by a maniacal, alcoholic mom. Sometimes she claimed he had violated some rule--no walking on the grass at school!--but mostly it was pure sadism. Inexplicably, his father didn't protect him; only an alert schoolteacher saved David. One wants to learn more about his ordeal and its aftermath, and now he's written a sequel, The Lost Boy, detailing his life in the foster-care system.

Though it's a grim story, A Child Called "It" is very much in the tradition of Chicken Soup for the Couple's Soul and the many books in that upbeat series, whose author Pelzer thanks for helping get his book going. It's all about weathering adversity to find love, and Pelzer is an expert witness.

Not Without My Sister: The True Story of Three Girls Violated and Betrayed

Kristina Jones, Celeste Jones, Juliana Buhring

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 18 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Not Without My Sister 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Not Without My Sister: The True Story of Three Girls Violated and Betrayed Paperback book The book was damaged when I received it. It is a very good bookespecially if you like true stories.

Editorial Review:

Kristina, Celeste, and Juliana were all born into the Children of God cult, and from as early as three years old were mistreated and used as sexual beings. They were denied access to formal schooling, forced to wander the streets begging for money, and were mercilessly beaten for "crimes" as harmless as reading an encyclopedia. After being separated from each other and their mothers and forced to live in various missions with multiple foster parents, the sisters eventually managed to escape. In this startling exposé, they have come together to reveal in horrific detail the group that has destroyed the lives of so many. Their intertwining stories reveal a community spread throughout the world whose legacy of anorexia, depression, drug abuse, suicide, and even murder are impossible to erase. Together, the sisters found a strength that finally enabled them to uncover and free themselves from the shadows of their past.

The Tiger's Child

Torey Hayden

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 42 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A Story of a Truly Dedicated Teacher and Inspirational 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

This is the sequel to One Child so it's best to read that one first. This book is fantastic. I loved it. It continue's the story about Shelia as a teenager and how she had blocked a lot of her childhood out. Her memories came back the more she talked with Torey. Also worked with Torey with some disturbed kids which was good for awhile. This book tells how Shelia overcame her very abusive childhood and how Torey encouraged and helped her long after she left her class. If you read "One Child," then you must read this one!

Karen Arlettaz Zemek, author of "My Funny Dad, Harry"

Editorial Review:

What ever became of Sheila?

When special-education teacher Torey Haydenwrote her first book One Child almost twodecades ago, she created an internationalbestseller. Her intensely moving true story ofSheila, a silent, profoundly disturbed littlesix-year-old girl touched millions. From everycorner of the world came letters from readerswanting to know more about the troubled childwho had come into Torey Hayden's class as a"hopeless case," and emerged as the very symbolof eternal hope within the human spirit.

Now, for all those who have never forgotten thisendearing child and her remarkable relationshipwith her teacher, here is the surprising story ofSheila, the young woman.

Genie: a Scientific Tragedy

Russ Rymer

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Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Professionals & Academics -> Scientists
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Mental Health -> Abuse & Self Defense -> Sexual Abuse

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 14 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Genie deserves better.....again 3 out of 5 stars.
15 of 22 people found this review helpful.

What do you do when you find a girl as abused and isolated as Genie? When a girl has been locked away in solitude for so terrifyingly long - the only life she'd known since birth? When she is physically disabled as a result of her abuse? When she is disturbed beyond comprehension?......Why, make her the subject of linguistic research of course.

I'm a linguist (specialising in children's language and language acquisition) and I've been haunted by Genie since I studied her myself from film footage, Curtis' dissertation, other books, and now Rymer`s book. I will never get over seeing Genie on film. Till the day I die. She was as unfamiliar to human life as an extra terrestrial, a beautiful ghost, `there' but not really `there`.

I felt some strong emotions - I wanted to (and still do) fly to America and look after Genie myself. I wanted to take her away from the research, the tests. I was angry with Curtis for even making research a part of Genie's life - sure Lenneberg, Chomsky and Piaget's theories need exploring, but in a case as extreme as this, who really gives a **** about linguistics? I was angry with Jean Butler for putting her own interests ahead of Genie's and I was furious that Genie had been abused in the first place. As with many people at the time and since, I have been massively affected by her story, and I wasn't even born when she was rescued.

In my `struggle' to deal with my emotions on the subject of Genie, I thought Rymer's book might help me, teach me more about her, give me more detail on her since the 70s, more about her and those around her as PEOPLE.......and help me to grieve.

Sadly, as some linguists did back in the 70s, Rymer doesn't distinguish between Genie's life and linguistic study. You get 4 or 5 chapters on theories and studies which make me sick to the stomach. I'll read those elsewhere, but isn't this supposed to be Genie's story? Isn't that why it's called `Genie' - I don't need chapters on `Victor' from 1800.

You can get most of this information from other sources anyway - there was little revelation in Rymers book for me. There is just so much missing. I have read it twice now and I still have a thousand questions.

And Rymer's experiences are almost as second-hand as mine.

This is a page-turner, but Genie's story is.....

Editorial Review:

The compelling story of a young woman's emergence into the world after spending her first 13 years strapped to a chair, and her rescue and exploitation by scientists hoping to gain new insight into language acquisition.

I Never Told Anyone: Writings by Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse

Ellen Bass

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 15 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

I saw myself in the pages... 5 out of 5 stars.
8 of 8 people found this review helpful.

This book provides insight into the inner workings of child sexual abuse and why victims don't tell. The stories range from a quick one-time exposure to unthinkable brutality. Some perpetrators were strangers; others were family members. All caused lasting emotional damage. The accounts are so honest and true that they allowed me to recognize for the first time that I had been molested, and it completely changed my life.

I read "I Never Told Anyone" about twenty years ago, when I was still living with my parents, not long after I graduated from college. My mom had checked it out from the library, and the title haunted me because I, too, had a secret I had never told another living soul. I read the back cover and then kept moving the book away from wherever I was in the house, terrified of what was inside. Finally, I couldn't resist. I stayed up all night and read it from cover to cover. I saw my own story in the things that were said, the feelings that were expressed... For the first time I realized that maybe I wasn't evil; that maybe I didn't deserve to die; that instead, as an innocent child, I had been manipulated and molested.

It was the most difficult thing I have ever done, but because of this book, I did tell, and I got help. Child sexual abuse is extremely devastating, but there can be happy endings, and I am living one. Thank you so much, Ellen Bass and your courageous contributors, for your part in that.

Editorial Review:

A reissue of the now-classic anthology (with more than 60,000 copies sold) of deeply moving testimonies by survivors of child sexual abuse--with a new afterword by Ellen Bass, co-author of The Courage to Heal.

Beautiful Child

Torey Hayden

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 39 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

In the tradition of David Pelzer's A Child Called 'It' comes the unsettling story of a mute, almost catatonic seven–year–old and the special education teacher who tries to save her from the silence and abuse of her world.

Hayden has chronicled experiences from her long career as a special education teacher in several books, including One Child and The Tiger's Child. Successes in this difficult and often frustrating field can be few and hard won, a fact which Hayden deftly illustrates while simultaneously offering hope and joy in small victories. This time she brings to life the story of a scruffy seven–year–old, Venus, who is so unresponsive that Hayden searches for signs of deafness, brain damage or mental retardation. The author is relentless in her attempt to diagnose the cause of Venus's 'almost catatonic' state, which is punctuated by occasional violent outbursts. In this first–person narrative, Hayden also shares her own thoughts, worries and reflections on the strained relationship with a mismatched classroom aide, creating a rich tapestry of the dynamics of a group of special needs youngsters and the adults who try to help them.

Child Abuse and Culture: Working with Diverse Families

Lisa Aronson Fontes

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Excellent choice for graduate students preparing to work in schools 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Dr. Lisa Aronson Fontes has written a unique and extremely helpful book that is a must read for anyone who works with children and families. I had my graduate students in school counseling read and discuss the book this past year and they found it to be extremely practial, enlightening and applicable to their work. It really engaged and challenged them and sparked an extremely rich and useful dialogue. I have been looking for a book like this for some time now and I am thrilled to have finally found a well researched, compassionate and clearly written book which speaks respectfully to the complexity of these issues.

Editorial Review:

This expertly written book provides an accessible framework for culturally competent practice with children and families in child maltreatment cases. Numerous workable strategies and concrete examples are presented to help readers address cultural concerns at each stage of the assessment and intervention process. Professionals and students learn new ways of thinking about their own cultural viewpoints as they gain critical skills for maximizing the accuracy of assessments for physical and sexual abuse; overcoming language barriers in parent and child interviews; respecting families' values and beliefs while ensuring children's safety; creating a welcoming agency environment; and more.

It Happened to Me: A Teen's Guide to Overcoming Sexual Abuse (workbook)

William Lee Carter

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Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Mental Health -> Abuse & Self Defense -> Sexual Abuse
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

All teen and young adult survivors need this workbook 5 out of 5 stars.
27 of 27 people found this review helpful.

This workbook is just excellent! I have trouble putting it down! It manages to be relevant to a wide variety of teens, without being too technical, too cutesy, or too preachy. Each exercise is short (2-3 pages) but challenging. There are also quotes from teen survivors and sidebars that point out problem behaviors common in abuse survivors without being judgmental. As a college student, I'm a little too old to be the intended audience of this book (all the teens mentioned in here are between the ages of 13-18), but as someone who still has to deal with her parents on a regular basis, I appreciated that lots of the exercises here dealt with family matters under the assumption that you're still living and dealing with your family, something that's not in many of the adult books. Guys might not like that pretty much all the pronouns are "she" and "her", but otherwise it's still a very relevant book for every teen survivor. It can be completed by yourself, in a group, or as part of therapy. Topics covered include emotions and emotional manipulation, keeping secrets, impulsive behaviors, how to get along with other people, sex, suicide, and commitment to recovery. The emphasis is not on "name your disorder" but on returning to emotional health. Even if you have to make a secret trip to the bookstore and hide this book in the back of your closet, it's worth it.

Editorial Review:

At least one in four girls and one in seven boys endure some form of sexual abuse. And most of these sexual trauma survivors find the early adult years are crucial for recovery. During this time they have the best combination of motivation, capacity for insight, and support to begin the process of healing. Written by a psychologist who works with sexually abused teens, It Happened to Me helps young adults reflect on what happened, examine its impact on their lives, and begin to develop healthy relationships.

Father-Daughter Incest (with a new Afterword)

Judith Lewis Herman

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Insightful, only slightly flawed . . . 4 out of 5 stars.
25 of 42 people found this review helpful.

A very clear, concise and informative way of explaining the complex and sometimes perplexing issues around incest. Readers who may have found the complicity of the victim incomprehensible may find new insight here. The only flaw I found in the book was the box within which it was written. The text explains things within it's own universe, but the analysis isn't quite global enough to allow it's dynamic application in the chaos of the real world, where motivations, temptations, emotions, etc. can all tangle quite intricately to further confuse the issues involved. Still, a very, I would even say indispensible treatise on the subject.

Editorial Review:

Through an intensive clinical study of forty incest victims and numerous interviews with professionals in mental health, child protection, and law enforcement, Judith Herman develops a composite picture of the incestuous family. In a new afterword, Herman offers a lucid and thorough overview of the knowledge that has developed about incest and other forms of sexual abuse since this book was first published. Reviewing the extensive research literature that demonstrates the validity of incest survivors' sometimes repressed and recovered memories, she convincingly challenges the rhetoric and methods of the backlash movement against incest survivors, and the concerted attempt to deny the events they find the courage to describe.

Repressed Memories: A Journey to Recovery from Sexual Abuse (Fireside/Parkside Recovery Book)

Renee Fredrickson

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 17 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Life Saver 5 out of 5 stars.
22 of 24 people found this review helpful.

Upon reading this book I was finally able to realize the flashbacks and images that have been haunting me for years.Every turn of the page was another window into my thoughts and emotions offering insight and relief. I was able to piece my feelings together like a puzzle and use that to change my life. This book helped me realize many of the problems I am having and offered me solutions of how to deal with them. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who is struggling with issues from their past. I can guaruntee that if it helped me it can help many others!

Book based on a fallacie, 1 out of 5 stars.
2 of 31 people found this review helpful.

This book and others like are based on unproven myths and fallacies that were popular in the nineties. Just like this other lie called facilitation. The truth is that traumatic memories are remembered, not forgotten or repressed. If it happens it is extremely rare.

Trouble is, once you start believing something happened, it stays with you like a real memory.

Please, do not believe the assumption these books are based on.

Editorial Review:

Buried memories of sexual abuse can have a devastating impact on a victim's relationships, work, and health. Using case histories, Renee Fredrickson stresses the importance of recovering these memories as a crucial step in healing, and she explains various therapeutic processes used in memory retrieval.