"A Man Named Dave"

The background childhood experiences reveal Dave's character traits as an adolescent and young man. The kind couple Dave treats as parents give him ample space to study these lessons from his past and to learn from them. It is when his father is dying of cancer that Dave attempts to reestablish contact with the man.

The son's lifelong wish is to become a firefighter in the steps of his father. To accomplish that dream, Dave joins the Air Force, where he overcomes obstacles that would stop an ordinary man. But his determination pulls him past these obstacles in his quest for recognition. He becomes an in-flight fueling technician for the Air Force, a highly regarded job and, in the course of his career, he meets his first love. A rush into marriage proves disastrous, but his son, Stephen, is the result of that union. Dave's inability to trust another person is a partial reason for the failure of his marriage --- until he can finally come to terms with the facts of his childhood, he cannot give total trust to any relationship.

Dave spends countless hours with his dying father, trying to untangle in his mind the web of broken family relationships. He attempts to sort out the whys of his mother's sad existence by deepening his ties to his father, but those answers do not unfold during this time. Much later, after his mother's death, Dave realizes that his mother's demonic tendencies were gleaned from her own childhood experiences. He is determined that his child will never know the exclusion he felt as The Child Called "It."

...... D' Lost Boy ..... T.T

The book continues after the ending of the previous book,"A Child Called It". David Pelzer is taken into foster care at 12 years old, after being tormented and abused for years by his mother, Catherine Pelzer. The book starts out with David Pelzer, 9 years old, running away from his home in Daly City, California. He ends up in a bar, getting cared for by some of the patrons. One of them calls the police, bringing David home to his abusive mother. David's teachers eventually contact the authorities, causing David to be put together with a social services worker named Ms. Gold. Before the trial of whether or not to permanently remove him from his mother's custody, David becomes confused about whether he may have deserved the treatment his mother gave him. Ms. Gold, on the other hand, assures him it had nothing to do with him, and that his mother is sick.

After the trial, he is put into a home for the mentally challenged under the care of a woman he calls Aunt Mary. He does not fit in with the other children, he is quite active and disruptive due to being cut off from normal household living and behavior for so long. He soon receives a visit from his mother and brother. His mother asks how David was doing, calling him "The Boy", shocking Aunt Mary. While Aunt Mary answered a short phone call, his mother swears to David that she will get him back. His brother brought back David's bike, which was mistreated and broken. He is so distraught by the bike's condition that he cried for hours. He decides to fix the bike on his own. One day, he decides to ride his bike and go down his old road. His family sees him riding on the road, and contacts his foster family. He is punished, but it is nothing compared to his former treatment.

Later in the book, David meets a person who he thinks is his friend, until he starts using him to do illegal things. One of those times is when they plan to set one of his teacher's classroom on fire. The fire gets out of control, and David tries to stop it. His "friend" later tells the teacher that it was all David. As a result he is removed from his foster home, and sent to Juvenille Hill. He eventually is released, and is placed in multiple foster homes across California.

In his sophomore year of high school, he is placed into a class for slow learners. He then decides that he is more interested in earning money than school, because he will be out of foster care in less than a year. When he is out of foster care, he enlists in the U.S Air Force. Surprisingly, his own mother knew the news and she congratulated him at his Air Force graduation. As he talked to his mother and began to cry, he then hopes that his mother will say the three special words that he has always wanted her to say. "I love you." This phrase was touching and poignant for David, as he has longed for these three words for years. He believes that he wanted to see his mother but that was also not a good idea. He soon realizes that the mother's love that he has always been searching for was in the arms of his foster mother, Alice. The story ends with him beginning his career in the U.S. Air Force.

Such Good Boy

Such Good Boys is the true crime story of a 20 year old college student who endured verbal and psychological abuse by his emotionally disturbed mother. On the night of January 14, 2003, this same college student,with the help of his younger brother who also suffered abuse but to a lesser extent,strangled this mother. To avoid authorities being able to identify her body, he chopped off her head and hands.

This book will make you believe in the saying "you reap what you sow" and as a mother this book has put some more doubts and worries into my mind as to whether I am raising my children properly.This is what I love about true crime books.Because the stories are real life stories,true crime books provide an insight into what can go wrong,what you can do to avoid certain situations and much much more.True crime authors have to be especially gifted at writing these books as the climax of a true crime story has already happened.You know before you start reading who murdered who.These true crime authors do not have the advantage of keeping their readers enthralled with the prospect of finding out what happens in the end.So they have to be really talented to keep you reading and in my opinion most of them are.But not just anyone can become a true crime writer.