Brief Summary Of One Child By Torey Hayden

One Child written by Torey Hayden and published in 1980 is about a six-year-old girl named Sheila, who was put into Hayden’s special education class when there was no spots open at the hospital where Sheila was initially supposed to be kept. From the 5 months Sheila spent with Hayden, she started out as a silent and uncontrollable but then blossomed into an extremely intelligent young girl. At the beginning of the book, Hayden discovered that a 6 year old girl kidnapped a three-year-old boy and attempted to burn him. The young boy was found before passing away. To her surprise, the girl that was guilty of the burning was sent to Hayden’s class until there was an opening at the state hospital. Hayden also had other students in her classroom

Her mother, who was eighteen at the time, took her two kids to run away from their father. However, Sheila was pushed out of the car door, leaving her behind on a highway and only taking her two-year-old brother Jimmie. Sheila was left with her father, who neglected and emotionally abused Sheila. Her father lived in a migrant camp and could not afford running water, and Sheila came to class with the same overalls and striped boy’s t-shirt every day. She was also known to wet the bed and because she was never washed at home, always came to class dirty and reeked of

Personally, I feel like I would see the world just the same as Sheila. Day after day she had very little food or water and had to cope on her own from her father’s psychological and physical abuse as well as being reminded of the abandonment of her mother. Sheila felt unloved and believed that her mother loved Jimmie and hated her because of what her mom did on the highway that night, which her father reassured her that was true. Because of this, Sheila closed off her heart from others; she would not speak in class, hardly ever let anyone see her cry, and wanted to be in control. I cannot blame her one bit, and I could see myself doing the exact same thing if I was in her situation. Being left without food or water and having no one to love you and to love you back would be hard for anyone. I could see myself become emotionless and defiant if that were the case for me; I am very fortunate to be able to live a happy and fulfilling childhood.

But despite Sheila trying her best to be brave, she still had her moments where she showed that she was still a child, and still feared being whipped. Sheila had bed wetting problems and because of it, her father whipped her as an act of punishment. To be strong, Sheila did not let others see her cry during a whipping or spanking, but one Hayden found Sheila in the gym after attempting to hide because