Review - Another Forgotten Child by Cathy Glass

Title: Another Forgotten Child
Author: Cathy Glass
Pages: 304
Release Date: September 2012
Format: Paperback
Buy it: Amazon
Add it: Goodreads
 
Synopsis: A new memoir from Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling author Cathy Glass.
Eight-year-old Aimee was on the child protection register at birth. Her five older siblings were taken into care many years ago. So no one can understand why she was left at home to suffer for so long. It seems Aimee was forgotten.
The social services are looking for a very experienced foster carer to look after Aimee and, when she reads the referral, Cathy understands why. Despite her reservations, Cathy agrees to Aimee on – there is something about her that reminds Cathy of Jodie (the subject of ‘Damaged’ and the most disturbed child Cathy has cared for), and reading the report instantly tugs at her heart strings.
When she arrives, Aimee is angry. And she has every right to be. She has spent the first eight years of her life living with her drug-dependent mother in a flat that the social worker described as ‘not fit for human habitation’. Aimee is so grateful as she snuggles into her bed at Cathy’s house on the first night that it brings Cathy to tears.
Aimee’s aggressive mother is constantly causing trouble at contact, and makes sweeping allegations against Cathy and her family in front of her daughter as well. It is a trying time for Cathy, and it makes it difficult for Aimee to settle. But as Aimee begins to trust Cathy, she starts to open up. And the more Cathy learns about Aimee’s life before she came into care, the more horrified she becomes.
It’s clear that Aimee should have been rescued much sooner and as her journey seems to be coming to a happy end, Cathy can’t help but reflect on all the other ‘forgotten children’ that are still suffering…
 
My Review: Eight year old Aimee has suffered for years with a mother who is so dependent on drugs that all her other children were taken from her a long time ago, Aimee is living in a filthy house and is subjected to mental and physical abuse.
 
No one know why Aimee was overlooked when her five other siblings were put into the care system years earlier, this makes Cathy just as angry as Aimee is.
 
When Aimee arrives all she seems to eat is biscuits for every meal, she has fingerprint marks all over her body from where her mums boyfriend has sat pinching her constantly, her clothes are filthy and she has a head full of lice. Aimee is not able to bathe or get herself dressed and she does not know how to tell the time or read, she has suffered some serious neglect and is traumatized by the inappropriate movies she was watching with her mum and mums boyfriend.
 
Aimee gets a happy end when she is placed with her half-brother and his family who can give her the childhood she so rightly deserves and needs.
 

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