Mock Printz Passionate Plea Non-Fiction

While The Lost Boy, by David Pelzer, is a non-fiction and an excellent attempt to capture the faults of the foster care system and the aftermath effects of child abuse, it is still unable to win my favor for the Printz Award.

To begin with, the dialogue between the main character and his surroundings presents a victimized Tiny Tim persona that is neither appealing nor very convincing at times. While it is possible that Pelzer was trying to recapture his painful memories, I feel that he may have tried too hard to present himself as the poor victim surrounded by menacing characters.

In addition to this, David's voice and description in the book resonated an adult persona. One did not hear the young David speaking, but rather the adult man-David. This voice, while serious and informative, was not necessarily always translatable to teens. In some ways, it was like listening to the dialogue in an adult documentary made for children and trying to picture the images on your own. But even that voice left room for confusion. This may have been provided to give the reader a sense of what David had to experience and his lack of understanding of the people in his life. Yet, I felt that certain matters should have either been explained better or written better to allow the reader to feel as if he or she is viewing the problem through young David's eyes.