David

From the very first frantic paragraph, you can tell that life is rough for David's mom, Marie Rothenberg, who's the author of David (362.1 ROT). Marie's and David's lives were never to be the same after March 3, 1983. David was only six years old.

Charles, Marie's ex-husband and David's father,had requested to take David for a week. In the past, Marie had no trouble with Charles spending time with David, but this time she felt uneasy.


Charles seemed to be such a doting father to David, buying him anything he wanted and, according to Marie, did not believe in punishing him if he caused trouble.

Marie just had an uneasy feeling about David's visit this time. Charles had been fired from his job, but there was another job he had lined up. When Marie didn't hear from Charles nor David for a few days, she called his house several times. There was no answer and no return phonecall. She called the place he used to work. They had not heard from him. She called the company he was going to start working for. She was informed that he had not been hired there. She found out that David has not been going to school.

Unknown to Marie, Charles took David to Disneyland. Because the weather was so bad, the two spent a lot of time in the hotel room. Because of his mental state, Charles set David on fire, which he surprisingly survived. The burns were so severe, he had to get his fingers amputated. His body required extensive skin grafts.

During the trial, Charles blamed Marie for making him do that to his son. Talk about a sick man!

c Waterloo Public Library 2008