As an avid reader of essays and literary non-fiction, I never heard of David Pelzer. He simply wasn’t good enough to pop up on my radar of writers worth reading. Then, I became a public librarian, and at least once a week, someone would ask me for “A Child Called It.”
So I had to find out, why was Pelzer appealing to reluctant readers who normally just came into the library for DVDs, to glance at the Want Ads, and to use our computers? Pelzer’s allure is quite simple: he writes horror stories about child abuse with gruesome details in an easy to read style filled with colloquialisms and clichés, making his writings unintentional high-low books (high interest level/low reading level, which means content geared towards teens and adults at a basic reading level).
For every reason his books attract reluctant readers, there is a reason for library professionals not to recommend his books (although we should always give his books to our patrons if they ask for them by name and do not request our opinion): the gratuitous violence that has been reported by Pelzer’s family members to be absolutely false, Pelzer’s stature as a professional victim, the substantiated claim that he keeps himself on the New York Times Best Sellers List for Paperbacks by purchasing large quantities of his books at a discounted price and reselling them at his sold-out talks across the country. Although Pelzer’s behavior is despicable and unveracious, these reasons are not enough for me to suppress his books from my reader’s advisory service.
But, the fact that he calls himself “the Robin Williams of Child Abuse” is simply reprehensible.
