Murphy's Boy

When special education teacher Torey Hayden first met fifteen year old Kevin, he was barricaded under a table. Desperately afraid of the world around him, he hadn't spoken a word in eight years. He was considered hopeless, incurable, but Hayden refused to believe it, though she realised it might well take a miracle to break through the walls he had built around himself. With unwavering devotion and gentle, patient love, she set out to free him, - and slowly uncovered a shocking violent history and a terrible secret that an unfeeling bureaucracy had simply filed away and forgotten. But she never gave up on this tragic "lost case". For a trapped and frightened boy desperately needed her help - and she knew in her heart she could not rest easy until she had rescued him from the darkness.

This book is both heartbreaking and uplifting at different times. Kevin is a young man who you cannot help but feel very deeply for, he has had a life no-one should ever expereince. Torey Hayden is a very gifted lady both with a pen and with children. I would recommend this and other books of Torey's.