week 3 post 2

Part 2-pg. 94-150

Summary of entire book to this point:

Dave, a 9 year old boy lives with his mom, dad, and three brothers. He is called 'it' in his family and is the child his mother abuses. At the beginning of the story Dave's abusive, alcoholic mom makes him sleep in the garage, clean the bathrooms, beats him and does many other harsh things to him. One day Dave's dad stood up for Dave so his mom got so mad and told him to leave the house. Dave left not knowing what to do or where to go. Since Dave hadn't eaten in days he decides to go to a Pizza Place to see if he can get food. While being there he steals two quarters from a table and the waitress found out. The waitress was mad at first but then saw he had torn clothes and looked beaten so he called the police. The police came and got Dave from the pizza place and asked him what he was doing and his phone number. The police called Dave's dad, who said that Dave ran away because he was mad. Dave was taken home and got in trouble for "misbehaving". Later in the week at school, Dave's teachers figure out that his mother is abusive by the scars and bruises on him, so they called the police and Dave was taken away. They took him to the station to ask him questions and go see the doctor. From there, Dave was put with an attorney, Mrs. Gold, who is going to help him get into a foster home. There was then a court case for whether he should go back with his mom and family or into a foster home. The mom says she has nothing to say during the case, so Dave was able to choose to go to the foster home. He is very happy but not sure what is going to happen next. He then moved to live with Lilian, a foster parents with many other kids. Even though he is away from his mom, he is still scared she will get him back. Dave's life was turned around by getting his own room, having a caring guardian, getting new clothes and not having to be abused. Since he has been gone some fights with other foster children occur, his mom comes to check on him, his dad forgets to visit him, he is caught biking by his old home with a friend and has to go to a mean psychiatrist, he still is off to a way better start than the life he had before and is starting to feel like a normal kid again.

There are many strengths and weakness' in the book "The Lost Boy." One strength in the book is that it is very descriptively written and you are able to imagine everything that is going on. A weakness in the book it that it seems a little bit unrealistic. I feel it is unrealistic because it has so much information on what happened in his past and i feel that he would not be able to remember it.

There are many feelings that I have while reading the book. I feel that the issue of abusiveness is very important so I'm glad Dave was able to inform people about one of the worst cases of abuse in California. I feel sad when he talks about all the horrible things that were done to him and how he was beaten. But I was very happy to hear that he got away from his family and is moved to a nice foster home.

The issues in this book can be related a lot to real life. Everyday kids are beaten and they have no way to stop it. In this book, Dave is saved and many other kids can be saved to if they can get help and find the police.

My predictions for the rest of this book are: I think Dave is going to stay in foster care till he is 18 years old and then have to live on his own. I think when he gets older, he will confront his mom and ask her why she did the things she did. From there, I think he will get a job and turn his life around.