It was about a young boy named David and he lived with his dysfunctional mother whom abused him. The book starts off when he was 6 years old. His family was completely normal until his mother started to drink excessively. When his mother drank she saw David as a devil child and that everything he did was wrong. She stared to punish him by making him stand in the corner of the room saying over and over that he was a bad boy. But his mother saw that it wasn't working so she started to slap him and chase him around the house during one of her many drunken rampages.
Characters:David(It), Mom, Dad,brothers,etc
Characters:David(It), Mom, Dad,brothers,etc
Important Themes & symbols
Depersonalization:Dave is depersonalized by his mother and treated as less than human. She no longer calls him by his name but refers to him only as “The Boy.” It is this that enables her to ill-treat him and not be troubled by her conscience. She goes even further when she uses the impersonal pronoun that give the book its title: “You are a nobody! An It! You are nonexistent! You are a bastard child! I hate you and I wish you were dead!” With this attempt to delegitimize Dave’s entire existence, she is denying him even the right to live. It is as if he is an enemy in wartime who has been declared subhuman, thus making it easy to inflict inhuman punishment on him.
Faith: It is not surprising that for much of the time of his abuse Dave loses his belief in God. However, the title of the last chapter, “The Lord’s Prayer,” strongly suggests that a recovered religious faith plays a part in his resilience. At the very end of the narrative, as his mother once more has him at her mercy, he whispers the Lord’s prayer to himself. It seems that this nascent faith grew in him in the years that followed, since he states in the epilogue, “Instead of dwelling on the past, I maintained the same focus that I had taught myself years ago in the garage, knowing the good Lord was always over my shoulder, giving me quiet encouragement and strength when I need it most” (p. 157).
Victory:In “Perspectives on Child Abuse,” a short essay that follows the main narrative, Pelzer writes: “This is more than a story of survival. It is a story of victory and celebration. Even in its darkest passages, the heart is unconquerable.” (p. 164). Dave’s capacity to survive eight long years of abuse and come out of it intact as a human being is testimony to this aspect of his story :).