When I saw that Torey Hayden had written a sequel to One Child, I had to read it. I am a fan of Torey Hayden. The subject matter of her books is intense and hard to read for some, but I find her dedication to her students admirable and her writing style interesting and hard to put down.

This was a library book and I got it one day and had it finished by the next day. If you are not familiar with Torey Hayden she was a special education teacher. She was teaching at the time when special education classes were being eliminated and the children in these classes were being integrated into regular or mainstream classes. The children in her class were the ones that no one knew what to do with. Autistic and other learning disabilities. Sheila was in the class because she had set a little boy on fire and there was no room for her at the state facility they wanted to send her to.

Torey discovers that Sheila is not learning disabled, in fact her I.Q. is near genius level. Her problems come from the fact that her parents are alcoholic/drug users and she is living at the migrant camp in extreme poverty. With Torey’s help, Sheila is able to modify her behavior and is eventually put in a regular class.

The Tiger’s Child is the account of how Sheila is as a teenager. Torey writes frankly about how she is, how their interactions go, giving you a real insight to Sheila. Sensitive situations are dealt with candidly but not graphically.

Since this a true account there is no happy ending, things are not tied up in a bow. Torey Hayden stays true to the account and writes it in an interesting manner.

I give this book 4 stars and recommend it with a caution. Some of the children Torey deals with are profoundly disturbed and childhood sexual abuse is discussed. ( )

*spoiler warnings!*

This book is the true-story sequel to One Child, which ended on a hopeful note; the feeling that Torey really made a huge difference in Sheila's life, and that Sheila would be able to consistently progress and lead a better life. Which is why it’s hard not to wonder what actually happened to Sheila after the end of that book. That’s the question that The Tiger’s Child answers, and honestly, there were times while reading this book that I wished I had never started it, where I wished I didn’t know the answer to that question.

This book… I guess it shows that Torey isn’t the savior that the first book makes her out to be. I’m not putting the blame on Torey, because it was a huge blow to her, as well, to learn that she may not have helped Sheila or affected her life as much as she had thought. But for me, reading it… It was a letdown, honestly. Learning that this life-changing, amazing woman may not have helped this poor girl much at all… Maybe, possibly, even made things worse. See, Sheila was used to the deprived, neglected life. It was all she’d ever known. Back then, she didn’t *know* that her life was so horrible, because it was all she knew.

In this book, Sheila is very confrontational towards Torey, basically accusing her of deliberately giving her a better life and then taking it away. And it was hard to read that, hard to realize that maybe that was exactly how 6-year-old Sheila saw it. For the first time in her life she had luxuries like attention, cleanliness, toys, LOVE… And she got used to it. She learned that there *was* something better out there for her. And then it was taken away. Torey left, moved on at the end of the school year, and instead of Sheila’s life continuing to improve, it fell back to the way it was. Except this time Sheila knew what it was to have those things, and knew just how horrible her life really was.

That’s mostly what this book is about; Sheila and Torey reconnecting and figuring out how things actually affected Sheila and how Sheila’s life had changed since Torey left. One thing that really surprised me, really upset me, in the beginning was to learn how little contact Torey had with Sheila after she left. And how long it took her to track Sheila down; Sheila was thirteen years old when they finally reconnected. And to my surprise and Torey’s disappointment, Sheila remembered shockingly little about her time with Torey. It had been so intense, so life-changing for Torey (and supposedly for Sheila as well), that it was really shocking to find out that Sheila remembered next to nothing about that time.

I was completely and utterly shocked to find out that the reason Sheila was so angry with Torey so often in this book was because she had memories of Torey abandoning her… on the highway. I guess because of all the trauma of her childhood, Sheila’s memories had fused together or something, and she honestly remembered Torey being the one who abandoned her on the highway so long ago, when it was really her mother. That really speaks volumes about just how hard it was for her when Torey left.

I'm very, VERY glad to know that Sheila did turn out okay, despite all the shit that happened to her. To know that she's doing well and ended up working at McDonalds and becoming fairly stable. But all in all, this book was... sobering. All of Torey Hayden’s books are emotional and intense, but this one was a lot more… depressingly real. I don’t really know how else to say it. ( )

Hyvä, tietysti ( )

Synopsis: The sequel to [One Child], The Tiger's Child is so good because it shows us just how much change Torey made to Sheila.
At first, it seems as though it isn't much. We soon learn that Sheila is a troubled teenager, having spent time in about ten different foster care homes and child centers.
However, with an IQ of 180, Sheila still captivates Torey's attention, and together they bond a friendship instead of a teacher and student relationship, while Sheila progresses into a woman.
My Opinion: Once again, Torey has captured my attention. It was fascinating to see the positive change that Torey gave Sheila, and it was a nice (although slightly surprising) ending to what began as a violent six year old, about to spend her life in a mental institution. ( )

A number of years after Hayden lost contact with Sheila, the girl who she "tamed" in One Child, she gets the idea to publish the book, and thus starts looking more seriously for Sheila in order to let her read the manuscript. She gets back in touch with the girl, and finds that Sheila seems to have forgotten those months they had together. As the two stay in touch, however, more of the past starts to resurface, and maybe at the age of 14, Sheila is better suited to finally put her traumatic past to rest.
It's very interesting to get a "what happened later?" view of one of the children Hayden worked with. While the majority of the book deals with the stormy few months as Hayden and Sheila get reaquiantanced, it wraps up nicely by giving a very rough idea of where Sheila went on. This time, the happy ending really seems to be a happy ending.