One Child

Description

This beautiful and deeply moving tale recounts educational psychologist Torey Hayden's battle to unlock the emotions of a troubled and sexually abused child who, with the help of Hayden, was finally able to overcome her dark past and realise her full potential. Six-year-old Sheila was abandoned by her mother on a highway when she was four. A survivor of horrific abuse, she never spoke, never cried, and was placed in a class for severely retarded children after committing an atrocious act of violence against another child. Everyone thought Sheila was beyond salvation -- except her teacher, Torey Hayden. With patience, skill, and abiding love, she fought long and hard to release a haunted little girl from her secret nightmare -- and nurture the spark of genius she recognised trapped within Sheila's silence. This is the remarkable story of their journey together -- an odyssey of hope, courage, and inspiring devotion that opened the heart and mind of one lost child to a new world of discovery and joy.

Torey Hayden is an educational psychologist and a special education teacher who, since 1979, has chronicled her struggles in the classroom in a succession of bestselling books. She is the former President of North Wales Childline. She currently lives and writes in North Wales with her husband and daughter.

"Torey Hayden deserves the kind of respect I can't give many people. She isn't valuable, she's incredible. The world needs more like Torey Hayden." - Boston Globe It has been a long time since you have read a book with the sheer emotional impact of One Child." - New York Times "Page after page proves again the power of love and the resiliency of life." - Los Angeles Times