The Lost Boy by Dave Pelzer is a remarkable and gripping sequel to Pelzer's best-selling novel "A Child Called It." In the book A Child Called It, the author tells the story of a young boy about four years old whose family started out like any other "perfect" family, until his mother began to become very aggressive towards him. Things started to escalate and he soon found himself in a difficult situation. The novel ends with David ending the day with his son in a place where he went with his family when he was younger and where there were no problems yet. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay In The Lost Boy, the scene begins in the winter of 1970 in Daly City, California. Dave is now nine years old and still being abused by his mother. He describes the place he once called "home" as a "prison" and that he is his mother's prisoner. He is not considered part of the family and receives little or no food. He is given specific household chores with a time limit for each and is punished if he does not complete them within the allotted time. His school had become his refuge even though he was still an outcast there. He started stealing food from school because it was the only way to get food without his mother knowing until he was arrested one day. As soon as he came home from school, his mother would make him vomit to see if he had stolen any food. One day he was given the opportunity to escape from his prison and he took it, but it wasn't long before he returned. under the influence of his mother. When he went to school, his mother told him that if people asked him why he had bruises and such, he could lie about what happened, but even that didn't take long to figure out the lies. On March 5, 1973, staff members at his school had enough information about his situation and called the police to inform them. The same day, the policeman took him away and assured him that his mother would never lay her hands on him again. He was then placed in foster care, won against his mother in court, and then recognized as a permanent ward of the court. Finally feeling free from his mother's trap, he began going from foster home to foster home. Not knowing what it meant to be free and having to be responsible for himself and the actions he would eventually take, he began to get into trouble. The feeling of being wanted, appreciated and loved persuaded him to commit actions that landed him in the San Mateo County Juvenile Center. He gets visits from many people, including his father who he hadn't seen in a while, and he scolds him because Dave's mother was waiting for an opportunity like this where Dave would end up messing up and using her to his advantage and would have him institutionalized for good. as well as to justify the actions she had taken towards him. She failed and Dave was later released. His behavior changed and he quickly realized that his mother would never take care of him and that the mother and father he was looking for would not be found with his biological parent but with his last adoptive parents. He enlisted in the Air Force and the novel ends with him getting on a plane declaring that this is where his adventure begins. In this novel itself, Dave experiences physical, verbal, and emotional abuse. His mother loved playing “games” with him, such as making him stand in front of her without speaking or moving. She then grabbed his ear and slapped his face because heflinched or moved. He was no longer called Dave or his son, but rather "the boy" or "it" and had been brainwashed into believing that he deserved everything his mother did to him. The hero he once knew was nothing more than someone unwilling to help him. Dave's father lied for his wife about why Dave then ran away from home. Later chastised him telling him to stay away from his mother's ways and do what he wanted. she wanted to because she made her father difficult to deal with. His mother used tactics such as isolation where he was no longer allowed to play with his brothers, or leave the house except for school. She also resorted to emotional abuse, as noted in the previous paragraph, where she belittled him by not even recognizing him as her son and making him feel like he was nothing more than " a child, like that.” She would use her adult privilege by treating Dave worse than a servant, punishing him, always bossing him around, and using intimidation to instill fear in him. After successfully escaping her grasp, Dave found himself years later seeing his brother Russell and noticing his mother's familiar abusive behaviors that now instilled in his brother. During this novel, almost everyone tried to help him except his father. when he could have told the policeman the truth when he went to the police station to pick up Dave after he ran away. Instead, he covered for his wife and allowed the abuse to continue. As this story is made up of two volumes, most of the people who could have intervened are in the first novel. For example, his father, once again, who stopped the situation from getting to where it was. The grandmother who could have done something too and perhaps the first school staff who didn't investigate why he was stealing food. Dave's abuse ends as previously stated when he walks into school one day and is called. with the nurse, the principal and some of his teachers who investigated why he comes to school with old and torn clothes, bruises, burn marks and a scar where the knife pierced him when his mother stabbed him. They call the police and he is taken away. This is when the physical violence ends. The psychological abuse only ends when he finally feels at home with his last adoptive parents. It's hard to say which type of abuse Dave suffered was the worst, because all of the abuse his mother gave him was horrible. If it were just one case, the emotional abuse would be the worst, because his mother had so much power over him that she conditioned his brain to think he deserved everything he went through. because he was a “bad kid” and was a disappointment. Sometimes emotional pain is worse than physical pain. It takes longer to heal emotional wounds than physical wounds. Even with everything Dave went through when he was with his mother, the strength of trying at first to make his parents proud to try to show them that they were wrong about him and that he was It wasn't not a bad boy, but a good boy gave him the strength to keep moving forward. The little hope he had of one day being free from the abuse gave him the strength to continue his life. Sometimes those who only suffer once are severely scarred, damaged and can no longer try to move forward, but Dave was the opposite. He suffered greatly and still didn't let it harm him by trusting people to help him and love him. THE