The Boy from the Basement
Common Sense Note
The author deals delicately with a very dark and serious subject, but some sensitive children may find it too much to deal with, while others will need some parent discussion.
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Matt Berman
Child abuse, like slavery and genocide, is one of mankind's great horrors, and therefore hard to turn into literature without going too far. The balance between honoring the reality of the victim's experience without becoming unbearable is delicate, especially when writing for children, but author Susan Shaw gets it right. It's real (except perhaps for some overly fortuitous timing at the end) and moving without being melodramatic or graphic.
Unlike many other novels of this type, the author doesn't shortchange the lasting psychological impact of Charlie's experiences, nor does she demonize the parents: what they did was terrible, but the mother is passive out of terror, and the father is genuinely ill and, in his warped way, doing what he thinks is best. And Charlie's recovery, the main theme of the story, is realistically slow -- the book has to skip over years at the end to get him to a place where he is even beginning to function normally. A powerful and hopeful story.
From the Book:
The staircase creaks again. A couple of words I don't understand rumble to Mother as Father walks through the dining room. A soft answer from her, the scuff of footsteps from the carpet to the kitchen tiles, and Father's at his desk. Right on the other side of the door at the top of the basement steps. An invisible but uncuttable line attached to him pulls on my chest. I crawl up the steps and touch the door. He must know I'm here.
I want to call him. Father! Do you feel me like I feel you? Is it hard for you to work knowing there's only a door between us? You would see me if you opened it. True and real. You could hear me breathe like I hear you -- if you tried. Is it hard not to open the door and say, "Charlie, come on up!"?
It has to be as hard for him as it is for me. So I don't call. I crawl down again -- silently. I have to wait until he says it's time. That's what he told me. I have learned to believe what he says.
Plot Summary:
Charlie has been kept a prisoner in his basement by his psychotic father. He has never been to school, never heard of holidays, never used a phone; he doesn't even know his last name. He believes he deserves all this because he is bad. He has to scavenge for food at night after his father is asleep, and run into the yard because he's not allowed to use the bathroom. He is twelve years old.
One night while running to the backyard he accidentally locks himself out of the house. Wandering into the street he collapses, and wakes up in a hospital. From there he is sent to a foster home where, with the help of a loving foster family and a psychologist, he begins to try to overcome the severe emotional trauma, and adjust to a world with which he is completely unfamiliar.
Related Books:
Recovering from Abuse
The Lottery Rose by Irene Hunt
Like the Lion's Tooth by Marjorie Kellogg
Goodnight, Mr. Tom by Michelle Magorian
The Boy Who Could Make Himself Disappear by Kin Platt
You Don't Know Me by David Klass
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ViolenceCharlie's father shakes him violently and breaks his shoulder. Otherwise the violence is implied, not shown -- both Charlie and his mother have been beaten by his father. |
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