Dear Mrs. Zrihen, Reader’s Journal # 3 08/07/11
I just finished reading A child called “it” by Dave Pelzer. There is a quote that his mom made him say which was on page 30. It was “I’m a bad boy! I’m a bad boy! I’m a bad boy!” I picked this quote because this is what he had to say when he was a bad boy. I think this quote is important because his mom liked to hear him say it. Two strategies I used before reading this book was look at the cover of the book and skim and scan. Two strategies I used while reading the book was reread things I thought were typed wrong like when his mom said “The boy”. Also I read each chapter and made sure I understood it. After reading the book I told my friends a summary of the book, and I made a readers journal. The summary I told my friends was “First, David gets rescued because the police office calls his mom and says he is going to juvenile for a day, but the office actually lets him free. David used to have good times like being able to eat and wouldn’t get beaten. But when he was a bad boy his mother would make him sit in his bedroom in a corner, but his mother thought that that punishment wasn’t enough so she would drag his to his room and slam his face against his mirror until blood came out of his nose. Also she made him take of his clothes will she turns on the stove and he would have to lean over the flames but he got lucky that his dad was opening the door. So she pushed him telling him to put on his clothes. David’s mother wouldn’t feed him breakfast or dinner so he would steal food from other first grade classes. Then he got caught and his mom beat him up. After, he stole lunch from a store during recess. Then the manager called his mom and he got beaten again. Last he stole from school lunch. One day he went home and his mom wondered why he wasn’t hungry so she took him to the bathroom and made him put his finger on the back of his throat. He threw up hot dog in the toilet. His mother made him take it out of the toilet and put it in a bowl. She told his father and he told her then why don’t you give him food then. After she yelled then eat what’s in the bowl which was his vomit. And he ate it and after his mother threw newspapers warning him he will be sleeping under the breakfast table and the newspapers were his blankets. Then he went to houses saying I lost my lunch box can you make me lunch. Then one day he asked one of his Mother’s friends. Of course she called his mom. When he got home his mother would follow him do his chores. After, she made him drink a spoon of ammonia. For a week his mother would threaten him saying I will kill you with a knife in her hand. And that day the knife accidentally flue out of her hand and stabbed him in his stomach. Then his mother would cry and then she told him he has 30 minute to clean the dishes instead of 20. He went to his dad who was his hero and told him mom stabbed me and he didn’t do anything but say do the dishes. He finished the dishes in an hour and a half and went to the garage to change. His mom changed his clothes that were full of blood. While his father was away she made him bath in cold water and she would push his head underwater. Also she made him clean the bathroom with ammonia and Clorox.
This book is a memoir. The topic of this book is child abuse. The main idea of this book is that he is getting abused by his mother. If I would change the title of this book it would be “The boy!” I think this is a good title because she always calls him that. Three details that support the main idea is that she beats him up for no reason, makes him drink ammonia, and makes him bath in cold water and she pushes his head underwater so he wouldn’t be able to breathe. The essential message is probably don’t hide things. An example of a cause and effect is he didn’t say anything about getting child abused so he had to do chores and get beaten. His mother and father were different because his mother beaten him, made him do chores, let him starve, and made him suffer, and his dad did the opposite. He would sneak scrapes of food and didn’t do anything his mother did to him. A few text features from this book are table of contents, italics, titles, photos, and bold print. The pattern of organization of this book is classification order. The author’s purpose is to share about his life from age of 4 to 12 while he got abused by his mother. I think the author’s perspective on child abuse is parents exerting their “right” to discipline their children and letting it get a little out of hand. The author is subjective and bias. The story is told in first person. Five words I didn’t know while I was reading were futile, frantic, mundane, nurture, and ammonia. I looked up the words in a dictionary. Futile is a useful result. Frantic means wild or distraught with fear. Mundane means lacking interest or excitement. Nurture means to care for. And ammonia is a colorless gas with a strong smell. The text doesn’t relate to me because my mom would never do those things and she never did. The text relates to the world because thousands of other kids get abused by their parents. I would rate this book a 10 because it’s my favorite book and it was the most interesting book I have ever read.
Sincerely,
Erika Alban
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