Dave Pelzer was brutally beaten and starved by his emotionally unstable, alcoholic mother, a mother who played tortuous, unpredictable games. Games that left one of her three sons nearly dead. She considered Dave a slave; no longer a boy, but an it. His bed was an old army cot in the basement, his clothes were torn and smelly, and when he was allowed the luxury of food it was scraps from the dogs bowl. The outside world knew nothing of the nightmare played out behind closed doors. But throughout Dave kept alive dreams of finding a family to love him. This work covers the early years of his life and the horrors of child abuse as well as acting as testament to the steadfast determination of one child to survive.