Critical Response- One Child by Torey L. Hayden

Essay by zero_the_heroJunior High, 9th gradeA, April 2005

download word file, 2 pages 3.0

Downloaded 21 times

One Child has pulled it's readers in from the first page. It is a novel that shows the love that a young child receives after being abused and deprived of this emotion some of us take for granted. Torey L. Hayden is the author of this book as well as the teacher of this young girl named Shelia. Torey writes the novel from her perspective; she goes into great depth explaining Shelia and the mischief that she causes and has begun the story in a fabulous way. This storey is also true, every page of it which makes it very believable and having that much more of an impact.

The novel is written in the point of view of the author, which is the teacher of a class of mentally and physically abused children. The story written in this way is great because really shows how she feels during a particular situation.

Also, Torey is able to read the expressions on the child-ren's faces very clearly and is dexterous at explaining what the children are saying in detail. She also has many theories about how to handle children, and shares them with the reader through this novel. Torey is excellent at telling the story of Shelia and her adventures in the "crazy kidz" class, and outside it as well.

"Shelia was wild, unreachable, abused and a genus," said Torey L. Hayden on the cover of her novel, One Child. This is extremely relevant for the first part of the book. Shelia has torn down the small portable that Torey's class is held in. She has poked out the eyes of pet goldfish with pencils and has stabbed Torey with a very sharp pencil, making her bleed. Torey thinks that Shelia is just behaving like this to show...