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A review by shanviolinlove
The Lost Boy: A Foster Child's Search for the Love of a Family by Dave Pelzer
4.0
I had been reading books about foster care and adoption, all written by professionals or adoptive parents. I have gleaned much from their perspective: dinners, playtime, acting out, tears, challenges, growth, and foster family love. I read about these children, feeling my heart break and fall in love, never knowing where the child was coming from or going through. I wanted to read something from a foster child's perspective.
For years I had heard of Dave Pelzer's books, but the explicitly described abuse, especially in A Child Called It, always curbed me. Until now. I found The Lost Boy, focusing on his foster years, and read the book from cover to cover in a 24-hour span. Pelzer offered insight into the life of an adolescent moved from home to home. Unable to stay with the violent mother whom he feared, no longer desired to be with--but from whom he still craved love. Desperate for acceptance--which he had never felt at home--Pelzer fell into the wrong crowds, exhibiting the defiance and eventual transgressions typical in the "f-word"--"foster child." The love and support he had from two sets of foster parents had helped shape him into the eighteen-year-old joining the Air Force and carving a future for himself. This book (*spoiler) has a happy ending. I am aware not all of them do. But The Lost Boy is an important story, both for families entering the world of foster care and for the communities (a.k.a. everyone else) who can support them as neighbors, friends, church members, teachers, coaches, music instructors, and fellow advocates.
For years I had heard of Dave Pelzer's books, but the explicitly described abuse, especially in A Child Called It, always curbed me. Until now. I found The Lost Boy, focusing on his foster years, and read the book from cover to cover in a 24-hour span. Pelzer offered insight into the life of an adolescent moved from home to home. Unable to stay with the violent mother whom he feared, no longer desired to be with--but from whom he still craved love. Desperate for acceptance--which he had never felt at home--Pelzer fell into the wrong crowds, exhibiting the defiance and eventual transgressions typical in the "f-word"--"foster child." The love and support he had from two sets of foster parents had helped shape him into the eighteen-year-old joining the Air Force and carving a future for himself. This book (*spoiler) has a happy ending. I am aware not all of them do. But The Lost Boy is an important story, both for families entering the world of foster care and for the communities (a.k.a. everyone else) who can support them as neighbors, friends, church members, teachers, coaches, music instructors, and fellow advocates.