This paper examines the book "A Child Called It" which chronicles the unforgettable account of one of the most severe child
abuse cases in the history of California. It is the story of Dave Pelzer, who was brutally beaten and starved by his emotionally unstable, alcoholic
mother: a mother who played tortuous, unpredictable, as he would call it, 'games' that left him nearly dead. It looks at how he had to learn how to play his mother's games in order to survive, because she no
longer considered him a son, but a slave and no longer a boy, but an "it."