A heart-rending but uplifting story of the human spirit’s ability to prevail.
From the day he is five-years-old and dropped off at his foster home of the next eleven years, Stephen is mentally and physically tortured. No one in the system can help him. No one can tell him if he has a family. No one can tell him why, with obvious African-American features, he has the last name of Klakowicz.
… Klakowicz.
Along the way, a single faint light comes only from a neighbor’s small acts of kindness and caring—and a box of books. From one of those books he learns that he has to fight in any way he can—for victory is in the battle. His victory is to excel in school.
Against all odds, the author succeeded. He attended college, graduated, became a successful corporate executive, and married a wonderful woman with whom he established a loving family of his own. Through it, he dug voraciously through records and files and found his history, his birth family—and the ultimate disappointment as some family members embrace him, but others reject him.
Readers won’t be the same after reading this powerful story. They will share in the hurts and despair but also in the triumph against daunting obstacles. They will share this story with their family, with their friends, with their neighbors.
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This was all so real…and yet it tore at my heart. The abuse was so subtle and yet damaging and devastating…I still can’t believe he survived so intact and as such a good human. This a wonderful story. Totally worth reading.
A Chance In The World by Steve Pemberton is an autobiography on his childhood years spent in various foster homes. He is a survivor of child abuse and neglect.
It recants how he overcame his turmoil and tribulations and became a motivational speaker and author.
As a young child, Steve was left in the care of a family whom social services deemed …
This poor kid went through unbelievable abuse at the hands of his foster family. Only a few people–A kind neighbor, a teacher and a friend in the foster care system, were brave enough to get involved to help him. I would like to think that the foster care system in our country has changed, but I fear that being underfunded and under staffed, …
Similar to The Lost Boy series, we see a child come from an abusive life in foster care and turn into a man. His success is inspirational.
Very interesting.
It’s so awful to read about the mistreatment of any child; but, a child in foster care whose care is being funded by a state agency that hasn’t the foggiest notion of the horrors the children are enduring! GOOD GRIEF! You can never discount a sturdy child with the true grit and their drive to triumph. Good on the author for his tenacity.
Absolutely a great book. I was so proud of the main character in the end. It’s amazing how wicked people will be to a helpless child. I’m surprised that he lived through it.
Fantastic read. Heartbreaking, but so inspiring! Against all odds- what a wonderful man he turned out to be. Everyone should read this!
A broken and tragic of how Foster Parents can ruin a child’s life and
yet others, how few they may be, can inspire. No one in the many
years that disgusting Foster Mother cared for him, ever found her out to
be the insane person she was and her insane husband to boot.