Ghost Girl: The True Story of a Child in Peril and the Teacher Who Saved Her super

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Jadie never spoke. She never laughed, or cried, or uttered any sound. Despite efforts to reach her, Jadie remained locked in her own troubled world--until one remarkable teacher persuaded her to break her self-imposed silence. Nothing in all of Torey Hayden's experience could have prepared her for the shock of what Jadie told her--a story too horrendous for Torey's professional colleagues to acknowledge. Yet a little girl was living in a nightmare, and Torey Hayden responded in the only way she knew how--with courage, compassion, and dedication--demonstrating once again the tremendous power of love and the relilience of the human spirit.

Ghost Girl: The True Story of a Child in Peril and the Teacher Who Saved Her Reviews

Ghost Girl: The True Story of a Child in Peril and the Teacher Who Saved Her Reviews

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Average Customer Review

 ( 78 customer reviews)

78 Reviews

5 star:		(57)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful Dark, interesting, yet true, March 18, 2003 By  Edward Lacap (Bremerton, WA United States) - See all my reviews This review is from: Ghost Girl: The True Story of a Child in Peril and the Teacher Who Saved Her (Mass Market Paperback) This is the first book I've read from author Torey Hayden. While I was reading, it reminded me of author Dave Pelzer's book, "A Child Called It." While the content may be similar in that children are affected by the actions of adults, Ghost Girl is clearly different. As Hayden went on to describe the dialogue and experiences Jadie had gone though, there were many times when I was forced to set the book down in order to contemplate what I was reading. The pictures I created in my mind made me sick to my stomach. I could not even fathom what Jadie had to endure. Yet Hayden had the compassion to do what was right, which was to just care. Hayden's caring is what saved Jadie and her sisters from continued abuse. Yet questions went unanswered: were Jadie's descriptions psychotic or from real experience dealing with the occult and Satanism? We may never know and I really don't think it is the main point of Hayden's book. I think Torey Hayden's writing is complete and very intriguing. She... Read more Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  Was this review helpful to you?  Report abuse | Permalink   Comment 39 of 45 people found the following review helpful A SAFE PLACE WHERE THE GAG ORDER WAS LIFTED, March 19, 2002 By  BeatleBangs1964 (United States) - See all my reviews       This review is from: Ghost Girl: The True Story of a Child in Peril and the Teacher Who Saved Her (Mass Market Paperback) Once again Torey Hayden has written an outstanding book about her work with children. This book is mainly about Jadie, who, at 8 is (s)electively mute, walks hunched over and expresses fears that initially seem bizarre. At the opening of the book, Torey Hayden meets Jadie and her classmates after half term break. Within a short space of time during that first day together, Jadie broke her self imposed silence and spoke softly when asked a direct question. From that point on, Jadie's verbal progress is remarkable. A bright, expressive child, Jadie described a bizarre life outside of the classroom that certainly makes for a strong case for ritual abuse. Luckily Jadie was provided with a classroom environment in which she felt safe. Jadie feared spiders because she believed they could hear her and "tell on her" if she divulged anything that could be construed as a breach of confidence. She explained her posture as a means of "keeping her insides from falling out;" she fears... Read more Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  Was this review helpful to you?  Report abuse | Permalink   Comment 11 of 11 people found the following review helpful engrossing read - please write follow up, July 30, 2001 By  "mcm1" - See all my reviews This review is from: Ghost Girl: The True Story of a Child in Peril and the Teacher Who Saved Her (Mass Market Paperback) Once again, Torey Hayden has written a captivating account of her experiences with a fascinating and trouble young child. As usual, the author's loving attention and professional insight help uncover hidden layers of traumatic emotion causing this child's unusual behavior. I believe the girl is the real star of this book though. Her behavior and attempts at healing in reaction to apparently appauling abuse is a testament to the depth and complexity of the human psyche. While the epilogue paints a happy ending for the girl, I can't help but feel frustrated with the final chapters in the book -- at how long it took even a smart sensitive teacher to take seriously a girl's graphic descriptions of sexual abuse, at the entire professional community's naivete concerning the existence of ritual child abuse groups in this country, and the inability of the police to solve the case. For example, the girl demonstrates competence at operating video equipment (something her parents did not... Read more Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  Was this review helpful to you?  Report abuse | Permalink   Comment

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Somebody Else's Kids good

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List Price : $7.99 Price : $4.29

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"Were all just somebody else's kids..."

A small seven-year-old boy who couldn't speak except to repeat weather forecasts and other people's words...A beautiful little girl of seven who had been brain damaged by terrible parental beatings and was so ashamed because she couldn't learn to read...A violently angry ten-year-old who had seen his stepmother murder his father and had been sent from one foster home to another ...A shy twelve-year-old from a Catholic school which put her out when she became pregnant...

"What do we matter?"
"Why do you care?"

They were four problem children-put in Torey Hayden's class because no one else knew what to do with them. Together, with the help of a remarkable teacher who cared too much to ever give up, they became almost a family, able to give each other the love and understanding they had found nowhere else.

Somebody Else's Kids Reviews

Somebody Else's Kids Reviews

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 ( 59 customer reviews)

59 Reviews

5 star:		(47)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

42 of 50 people found the following review helpful IN THE INTEREST OF FAIRNESS, August 24, 2002 By  BeatleBangs1964 (United States) - See all my reviews       This review is from: Somebody Else's Kids (Paperback) This book is yet another outstanding account of Ms. Hayden's work with children. The children assigned to her resource room featured in this book are a 12-year-old girl who is pregnant; an 11-year-old boy who witnessed the murder of his father; a 7-year-old girl whose father battered her during her infancy causing severe brain damage and a 7-year-old boy whose behavior is described as autistic. In the interest of fairness, there is really no way for readers to "know" or declare how "pretty" any of the pupils are; this is not the place to proclaim "favorite pupils." Responding to the individual gifts each pupil had to offer is the underlying theme of this book. "Somebody Else's Kids" chronicles the lives of real people that most readers don't even know. In the interest of fairness, without personally knowing the teacher assigned to Lori, the 7-year-old, it is very easy to make a strong case against her based on her response to this child's academic needs. Early in the... Read more Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  Was this review helpful to you?  Report abuse | Permalink   Comment 11 of 11 people found the following review helpful somebody else's kids, November 8, 2005 By  E. M. Bristol "bibliophile" (boston, mass) - See all my reviews       This review is from: Somebody Else's Kids (Paperback) Torey Hayden, author of "One Child," charts a year in the life of a special education classroom with some unusual and unforgettable students. They include Claudia, an academically gifted, pregnant twelve-year-old; Tomaso, who witnessed the death of his father; Lori, a girl whose abuse left her unable to read and write; and Boo, an autistic boy with a fondness for giving weather reports. How they bond, become a class, and deal with the largely unsympathetic outside world makes for a remarkable story. Even more gratifying is the epilogue, in which we learn that all four made gains after they graduated from Hayden's class, all quite remarkably. Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  Was this review helpful to you?  Report abuse | Permalink   Comment 28 of 33 people found the following review helpful Unforgettable, January 19, 2003 By  S.J. (Up north) - See all my reviews This review is from: Somebody Else's Kids (Paperback) Somebody Else's Kids was the first book I read of Torey Hayden's. Since then, I have read her statement that this is the one book of hers that she cannot bear to reread as it was penned quickly and she doesn't like the writing. Maybe it was this perceived lack of "attention" to the writing dynamics that makes this book a little different than her others, and to me, a little more memorable. When looking into Ms. Hayden's works, the one most often cited is One Child. I have read this, as well as others such as The Tiger's Child and Ghost Girl, but Somebody Else's Kids just has a different feel to me - less forced, less heroic, just her work with very different children put together in the same classroom. The cases she refers to in this book are also quite different from the others she writes about (ie. elective mutism, autism), this time dealing with pre-teen pregnancy and illiteracy brought on by brain damage. It's a refreshing change from her other works and just as... Read more Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  Was this review helpful to you?  Report abuse | Permalink   Comment

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Tiger's Childbest

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Special-education teacher Torey Hayden's first book, One Child, was an international bestseller, thrilling readers on every continent. Their hearts were captured by Sheila, a silent, troubled girl who had been abandoned on a highway by her mother and abused by her alcoholic father, and who refused to speak. As Hayden writes in the prologue to this book, "This little girl had a profound effect on me. Her courage, her resilience, and her inadvertent ability to express that great, gaping need to be loved that we all feel -- in short, her humanness -- brought me into contact with my own."

Since then Hayden has gone on to write books about many of her students, but her fans continue to ask her, "What happened to Sheila?" The Tiger's Child is her response. Here Hayden tells how Sheila, now a young woman, finally came to terms with her nightmare childhood.

When Hayden was working on One Child, she showed the manuscript to Sheila, then a teenager, and was astonished to find that Sheila remembered almost nothing of her troubled younger years. She had no recollection of her many clashes with her teacher as Hayden tried to break through her emotional pain. And although Hayden had managed to get Sheila to communicate and become an active and lively child, Sheila's home life was still very troubled. Her father had been sent to prison when she was eight and Sheila had run away from a series of foster homes until finally she was placed in a children's home.

But as Hayden continued to renew her relationship with the teenage Sheila, the memories slowly came back, bringing with them feelings of abandonment and hostility. Overwhelmed by the intensity of her awakening emotions, Sheila was driven to suicidal despair. The Tiger's Child is the touching, inspiring story of how a maturing Sheila came to perceive her mother not as a monster who willfully cast off her eldest child, but as a weak, forlorn, ordinary human being. Able to appreciate her own strength and resilience, Sheila at last is free to overcome the haunting legacy of child abuse.

Product Description

Special-education teacher Torey Hayden's first book, One Child, was an international bestseller, thrilling readers on every continent. Their hearts were captured by Sheila, a silent, troubled girl who had been abandoned on a highway by her mother and abused by her alcoholic father, and who refused to speak. As Hayden writes in the prologue to this book, "This little girl had a profound effect on me. Her courage, her resilience, and her inadvertent ability to express that great, gaping need to be loved that we all feel -- in short, her humanness -- brought me into contact with my own."

Since then Hayden has gone on to write books about many of her students, but her fans continue to ask her, "What happened to Sheila?" The Tiger's Child is her response. Here Hayden tells how Sheila, now a young woman, finally came to terms with her nightmare childhood.

When Hayden was working on One Child, she showed the manuscript to Sheila, then a teenager, and was astonished to find that Sheila remembered almost nothing of her troubled younger years. She had no recollection of her many clashes with her teacher as Hayden tried to break through her emotional pain. And although Hayden had managed to get Sheila to communicate and become an active and lively child, Sheila's home life was still very troubled. Her father had been sent to prison when she was eight and Sheila had run away from a series of foster homes until finally she was placed in a children's home.

But as Hayden continued to renew her relationship with the teenage Sheila, the memories slowly came back, bringing with them feelings of abandonment and hostility. Overwhelmed by the intensity of her awakening emotions, Sheila was driven to suicidal despair. The Tiger's Child is the touching, inspiring story of how a maturing Sheila came to perceive her mother not as a monster who willfully cast off her eldest child, but as a weak, forlorn, ordinary human being. Able to appreciate her own strength and resilience, Sheila at last is free to overcome the haunting legacy of child abuse.

Tiger's Child Reviews

Tiger's Child Reviews

Customer Reviews

Average Customer Review

 ( 47 customer reviews)

47 Reviews

5 star:		(37)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

37 of 41 people found the following review helpful Satisfyingly realistic, November 19, 1998 By A Customer This review is from: The Tiger's Child (Mass Market Paperback) I first read One Child when I was thirteen, and it was a powerful force in my life, impacting me more deeply than any other story I have ever read. I related somewhat at thirteen to her life at six, and have read the book millions of times since, always wondering what became of Sheila and what her life might be like now. So when I discovered this sequal yesterday, it was like a goldmine. My biggest emotional reaction was deep sorrow, because One Child WAS like a fairy tale that had led us to believe that Sheila would probably be all right now that Torey had given her the wings to fly. But reality tended to beat Sheila up one side and down the other like a spiked club, and she no longer had anyone to help her through it. I look at Sheila as having lived her life very much alone with the exception of the five months in Torey's classroom in Marysville. Is five months really enough to build a sturdy enough platform for this kid? All kids need constant care and attention;... Read more Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  Was this review helpful to you?  Report abuse | Permalink   Comment (1) 14 of 14 people found the following review helpful Sobering & Honest, October 17, 2002 By A Customer This review is from: The Tiger's Child (Mass Market Paperback) Having read One Child over and over and over again starting at the age of ten, I was euphoric to come upon The Tiger's Child in a bookstore 15 years later. I had wondered about Sheila my whole life, worked for several years in a preschool in great part due to that astonishing tale. I believe all the magic that was in the first book, because that is the truth about the reality of children. The Tiger's Child was somehow more sad, even if in much subtler & less horrifying ways than the first book. Sheila had left her childhood, and Torey L. Hayden (who was just 24 in the first book!) was not in a position to help her to quite the extent that she had been able to in the earlier years. Torey L. Hayden writes very honestly and does not attempt to soften any of the difficulties in this later period. Her work as a teacher is remarkable & awe-inspiring... I just wish that somehow the world had continued to provide for Sheila as much as Torey had been able to in One Child. I ache that the... Read more Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  Was this review helpful to you?  Report abuse | Permalink   Comment 12 of 12 people found the following review helpful I Bought This One In Hardcover..., July 28, 1999 By A Customer This review is from: The Tiger's Child (Mass Market Paperback) Normally, I do not buy hardcover books. I wait until they are released in paperback or become available at the library. But when I saw the sequel to one of my all time favorite books, "One Child", at the bookstore right after its' release, I snatched it up immediately and ran to the cash register! That night I read the whole book from start to finish without stopping. For years I had wondered what became of Sheila after Torey's last glimpse of her through the school bus window, and now that I had the answer in my hands I could not put it down. It was heartbreaking to learn that the happiness and love that Sheila discovered in Torey's classroom did not last after she left. However, the story of she survived despite her many hardships, even finding some of that happiness again when she and Torey were reunited, was fascinating and often tearjerking. I have read and loved all of Torey Hayden's books. This is one of the best. I would love to see Sheila write her own book from... Read more Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  Was this review helpful to you?  Report abuse | Permalink   Comment

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