Help Yourself: Finding Hope, Courage, and Happiness

As nearly four million readers have learned from his three previous books, Dave Pelzer doesn't believe in feeling sorry for himself. Abused mercilessly by his mother as a child, Dave has taken everything that happened to him and turned it into something positive so that he can help others. Now happily married and with a child of his own, he celebrates the twin pillars of strength that saw him through his darkest hours: resilience and gratitude. And he shows how anyone can tap into these virtues to live a better and more fulfilling life.

In Help Yourself, Dave Pelzer explains how to move beyond a painful history, harmful negative thoughts, and innumerable setbacks by urging readers to take control and be accountable for their lives. Filled with his own history, as well as the personal struggles of others who have learned how to turn adversity into triumph, Help Yourself is a rousing call to readers who want real answers to real problems. Never before in paperback, it will undoubtedly join Pelzer's previous paperbacks on bestseller lists for years to come.

As a child, Dave Pelzer survived and overcame the life-threatening circumstances chronicled in his bestselling trilogy. He is now happily married, a father himself, and has been selected as one of the Outstanding Young Persons of the World. How was it possible for him to overcome such insurmountable odds? How can others who face overwhelming odds become all they wish to be? In Help Yourself, Dave Pelzer answers these questions and explains how anyone can move beyond a painful history, harmful negative thoughts, and innumerable setbacks by remembering to take control and be accountable for their lives. Filled with episodes from his own life and examples of others who have dealt with their own struggles, Help Yourself is a rousing call to readers who are tired of psychological platitudes and want real answers to real problems...from a man who willed himself to overcome the worst life had to offer and became the best he could be.

About the Author:
Dave Pelzer is the New York Times bestselling author of A Child Called "It," The Lost Boy, and A Man Named Dave. He travels throughout the nation offering keynotes on overcoming obstacles. He has appeared on Montel and Leeza.

KLIATT

Considering the childhood Mr. Pelzer claims to have had, it is a miracle that he can even smile, let alone write a book on helping yourself out of despair and into hope. But he has and it may just be what some YAs are looking for. Author of A Child Called "It," The Lost Boy, and A Man Called Dave, Pelzer was raised in a horrifying household, or rather, in the garage of the house. He was rejected by his mother, starved, beaten, and generally abused. And yet, he smiles. The wistful photo of him on the cover only hints at the childhood pain he must have endured at the hands of parents who were at best unbalanced and at worst cruel almost beyond measure. Somehow he turned his abysmal early years into gold and has produced works that have helped others along the way. This latest volume has the standard self-help guidelines but they are interlaced with incidents from Pelzer's life and that makes the advice more poignant and effective. Each of the three parts is titled with a command: 1. Get Rid of the Garbage in Your Life; 2. Know What You Want Out Of Your Life; and 3. Celebrate Who You Are And What You Have. The parts are divided into chapters that tell you succinctly and with lots of examples what to do and how to do it in order to achieve a life that is filled with hope. At the end of each chapter is a set of reminders that review the chapter's main points and directives. Self-help books are not for everyone, but for those who enjoy them and perhaps even for those who are in need and don't know where to look next, this is a book to read. It inspires, instructs, and gently prods the reader into at least making an attempt at a better life. Category: Education & Guidance. KLIATTCodes: JSA—Recommended for junior and senior high school students, advanced students, and adults. 2000, Plume, 218p., Ages 13 to adult. Reviewer: Joseph R. DeMarco; Libn., St. Joseph's Prep. Sch., Philadelphia, PA

With his jarring 1994 account of growing up with extreme child abuse, A Child Called "It," Dave Pelzer opened the nation's eyes to the epidemic in ways no one had done before -- and garnered a Pulitzer Prize nomination for his groundbreaking work.