Books to
Follow
A Child
Called It
Remember, the OHMS libraries may not own all these titles, but we can always order them for you! See a library staff member for help.
Yen – Chinese Cinderella
/ Falling Leaves
Did you ever wish you had Cinderella’s life? Don’t forget what came before she meets the prince. Adeline’s young life tragically parallels Cinderella’s, and her stepmother treated her with such cruelty it sounds like fiction. Falling Leaves is a more detailed version of her story.
Andrews, V.C. - Flowers in the Attic
Four children are locked into the attic of their grandmother's home after the death of their father.
Anonymous - Go Ask Alice
Based on the diaries of teen drug users, this anonymous journal documents Alice’s introduction to drugs and her struggle to escape the pull of the drug world.
Axline, Virginia - Dibs: In Search of Self
Bottoms, Greg - Angelhead
Greg Bottoms chronicles the events that led to his brother Michael's psychotic breakdown, the torment he caused his siblings and parents, the crimes he committed as a result of his illness, and his eventual admission to the psychiatric wing of a maximum-security prison.
Burch was left at an orphanage and never stayed at any one foster home long enough to make any friends. This is the story of how he grew up and gained the courage to reach out for love.
Coman, Carolyn - What Jamie Saw
Having fled to a family friend's hillside trailer after his mother's boyfriend tried to throw his baby sister against a wall, nine-year-old Jamie finds himself living an existence full of uncertainty and fear.
Verbally
and physically abused as a child in foster care, Fish became homeless at sixteen
but managed to survive, join the military, and
Frank,
E. R. - America! A Novel
This place is a temporary mental health treatment center. So why has America been here so long he can’t remember? Follow his thoughts as he flips back and forth between now and then to uncover and deal with the terrifying, tragic events that led up to where he is.
Hayden,
Torey – One Child
Hayden, Torey. Ghost Girl:
The True Story of a Child in Peril and the Teacher Who Saved Her
Jadie never spoke. She never laughed, or cried, or uttered any sound. Despite efforts to reach her, Jadie remained locked in her own troubled world--until one remarkable teacher persuaded her to break her self-imposed silence. Nothing in all of Torey Hayden's experience could have prepared her for the shock of what Jadie told her--a story too horrendous for Torey's professional colleagues to acknowledge. Yet a little girl was living in a nightmare, and Torey Hayden responded in the only way she knew how--with courage, compassion, and dedication--demonstrating once again the tremendous power of love and the relilience of the human spirit
Howe,
James - The Watcher
As she sits watching a seemingly perfect family and a handsome lifeguard on the beach, a lonely, troubled girl projects herself into the fantasy lives she has created for them.
Johnson, Anthony - A Rock and a Hard Place
A teenager who, until he was eleven years old, had been the victim of horrific physical and sexual abuse on the part of his parents, describes his escape from torment, his diagnosis with AIDS, and his continuing battle for survival.
Klass, David - You Don’t Know Me
Fourteen-year-old John creates alternate realities in his mind as he tries to deal with his mother's abusive boyfriend, his crush on a beautiful, but shallow, classmate, and other problems at school.
Lauck, Jennifer - Blackbird: A Childhood Lost and Found
When her mother dies, Jennifer Lauck, her brother, and her father move in with "Deb," a woman her father has obviously been seeing for some time. Things go from bad to worse when their father also dies and they are left to live with the selfish stepmother, who forces them to work for her weird church.
Lester, Julius - When Dad Killed Mom
One sunny morning, Jenna and Jeremy’s dad drives to the coffee shop where their mother goes to read. Then, he shoots her in the head. It’s not just the story of the horrible and terrifying murder of someone’s mother, but how Jenna and Jeremy go on after their lives take a sharp change in direction.
Mah, Martin,
Lee - From Our House: A Memoir
Lee Martin was born into a farming family the same year his father unexpectedly lost both of his hands, becoming an embittered, hardened man. It is Lee's mother's quiet compassion that account for the grace that Lee and his father finally discover both within themselves and within their family.
McNamee,
Graham - Hate You
Nursing hatred for the father who choked her and damaged her voice as a child, seventeen-year-old Alice writes songs she feels she cannot sing and seeks to reconcile her feelings for herself and her father.
Michner, Anna - Becoming Anna
When she was 15, a girl named Tiffany was put into a mental institution by parents who had physically and emotionally abused her. There, she encountered more abuse, intimidation, and overmedication. When she emerged and wrote this book, she became Anna – a new name for the start of her new life.
Moss, Thylias - Tale of a Sky-Blue Dress
A memoir in which the author recalls her years at the mercy of a sadistic babysitter and discusses the impact that experience had on the rest of her life.
Nolan,
Han - Born Blue
Janie/LeShaya, abandoned by her mother at a young age and later kidnapped by her from foster care and sold to a couple for heroin, finds solace in "the ladies" of jazz and blues and in her own big singing voice.
Oufkir, Malika - Stolen Lives: Twenty
Years in a Desert Jail
In 1972, Malika Oufkir and her five siblings were exiled after their father, was arrested and executed after attempting to assassinate the King of Morrocco. For fifteen years, the exiled siblings barely survived in an isolated penal colony, spending the last ten years of their imprisonment in solitary cells. Eventually, the Oufkirs managed a heroic, amazing escape.
Pelzer,
Dave - The Lost Boy
The author tells of his experiences in five foster homes and juvenile
detention, after he was taken away from his abusive mother and alcoholic father,
and discusses how he made it into the Air Force, and found love and contentment
in his life.
Pelzer, Dave - A Man Named Dave
The final entry in a trilogy of memoirs in which Dave Pelzer, brutally abused as a child, discusses the struggles he faced as an adult, and his determination to have a meaningful life. This book was preceded by A Child Called It and The Lost Boy.
Schreiber,
Rita - Sibyl
A case study of a woman who developed 16 personalities as a result of her mother’s abuse.
Tarbox, Katherine - Katie.com: My Story
Katie
tells the story of her eighth grade year – the year she met a cool guy on the
Internet who became her boyfriend through chat rooms and e-mail. When she
meets him face to face for the first time, she realizes that he’s not who he
said he was, and is really a 41-year-old pedophile.
Truemann,
Terry - Stuck in Neutral
Fourteen-year-old Shawn thinks his life is pretty good. He’s got a brother who’d do anything for him, he’s remembered everything he’s heard in his entire life, and on some days he can float high above the city. The bad news? His cerebral palsy is so bad that he can’t control any part of his body. Oh yeah, and he thinks his father may want to kill him.
West, Cameron - First Person Plural: My Life as a Multiple
West describes his experience with multiple
personality disorder. Over a period of several months in his 30s,
twenty-four personalities emerge and recount incidents of abuse he encountered
as a child--and kept long hidden.
Wolff, Tobias - This Boy’s Life
Wolff describes the years he spend growing up in Concrete, Washington,
and the abuse he suffered at the hands of his demanding, controlling stepfather.