A Stolen Childhood By Casey Watson

[amazon_link id=”0007543093″ target=”_blank” ][/amazon_link]’A Stolen Childhood’ is the latest book by Casey Watson.

When Casey first meets Kiera, a small slight girl who’s just lashed out at a fellow pupil in assembly, she immediately senses something’s wrong. Something in Kiera’s eyes alerts Casey that this is an “old head on young shoulders”, and with Kiera’s constant tiredness and self-soothing habit of pulling her hair out, she follows her instinct and takes Kiera under her wing.

At first the answer seems simple enough; Kiera’s parents aren’t together and they don’t get on, which makes life hard for Kiera as she’s so close to her dad. But as the weeks roll on, Casey begins to understand that there’s something much darker going on behind closed doors. And when she finally learns the truth, she’s terrified she won’t be able to save Kiera from it.

I tend to stay away from books about children, as years ago I read the book, ‘A Boy Called David’ a story about a young boy who was abused by his mother and after this traumatic story, it left me heartbroken and I vowed never to read one of these type of books again but then I was sent a copy of ‘A Stolen Childhood’ and I found myself getting tentatively stuck into the story.

The story is a true one which does make for shocking reading and is seen solely from the perspective of Casey Watson, a behaviour manager in the ‘unit’ of the local comprehensive school. In the unit, she deals with children with learning difficulties, who come from abusive families and broken homes, she helps them understand, interact with others and deal with their problems. It’s in this job, that Casey meets Kiara Bentley, a small 12 year old girl with a quick temper and a frank manner of behaving.

Casey notices that Kiara doesn’t act like other 12 year olds, she is advanced for her age and this is what Casey particularly notices about the girl and begins to look into Kiara’s background and is horrified to discover what the little girl is embroiled in.

This book is an unexpected and unsettling story, written in a frank and descriptive style, the story takes us to a world which is every parents nightmare where children are the victims of sexual abuse but are brainwashed into thinking that it is all perfectly normal. Casey is a strong woman, who is both courageous and brave in her job, taking on challenging children and their families as she tries to make a better life for everyone. Kiara is an unsettling character, she is volatile with unpredictable behaviour and I found myself regularly on guard with her, as she was constantly revealing something different about her home life.

A difficult story with an uncomfortable subject, ‘A Stolen Childhood’ is a remarkably moving, true story about one woman’s bravery to protect a little girl and help get her innocence back.

You can buy [amazon_link id=”0007543093″ target=”_blank” ]A Stolen Childhood from Amazon [/amazon_link] and is available to buy from good bookshops.