Orem Library

"This book chronicles the unforgettable account of one of the most severe child abuse cases in California history. 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 games--games that left him nearly dead. 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...

While learning to bestow dreams, a young dream giver tries to save an eight-year-old boy from the effects of both his abusive past and the nightmares inflicted on him by the frightening Sinisteeds.

Sent to live in a foster home in a remote Yorkshire village, Matt, a troubled fourteen-year-old English boy, uncovers an evil plot involving witchcraft and the site of an ancient stone circle.

Imagine being taken from your home. Imagine your mother is the one who lets it happen. This is the fate that befalls the Kelly children. Its 1856, and their widowed mother has sent them west from New York City because shes convinced that she cant give them the life they deserve. The Kellys board an "orphan train" and are taken to St. Joseph, Missouri, where their problems only grow worse. It was bad enough that they had to...

Eleven-year-old Primrose, living in a fishing village in British Columbia, recounts her experiences and all that she learns about human nature and the unpredictability of life in the months after her parents are lost at sea.

In Ellen Foster, the title character is an 11-year-old orphan who refers to herself as "old Ellen," an appellation that is disturbingly apt. Ellen is an old woman in a child's body; her frail, unhappy mother dies, her abusive father alternately neglects her and makes advances on her, and she is shuttled from one uncaring relative's home to another before she finally takes matters into her own hands and finds herself a place to belong. There is something...

Willow has never felt like she belonged anywhere and is convinced that the only way to find a true home is to travel the world. But her plans to act on her dream are put on hold when her aloof and often absent mother drags Willow to Salem, Massachusetts, to wrap up the affairs of an aunt Willow didn't even know she had. An aunt who may or may not have been a witch. There, she meets Mason, a loner who's always felt out of place and has been in and...

A newly graduated Mila emerges from foster care to accept a job on an isolated Northern California Coast farm where she confronts haunting memories and the traumas of her fellow residents.

A Man Named Dave is the conclusion to a trio of autobiographical books by Dave Pelzer, who to millions of readers of A Child Called "It" and The Lost Boy has become an inspirational figure. A Child Called "It" is the gripping and harrowing account of Pelzer's abuse at the hands of his mother, beginning when he was four years old and continuing until teachers and neighbors were finally able to intervene and he was placed in foster care at age 12. The...

When Rev Fletcher and Emma Blue meet, they both long to share secrets, his of being abused by his birth father, hers of her parents' failing marriage and an online troll who truly frightens her. With loving adoptive parents, Rev Fletcher has managed to keep the demons of his past at bay... until he gets a letter from his abusive father. Emma Blue spends her time perfecting the computer game she built from scratch, rather than facing her parents'...