Then there was Gerda, eighty-two, whom a massive stroke had rendered fearful and unwilling to engage in conversation with anyone. And though a specific course of action seemed clear, even she was unprepared for the shocking truth about little Drake's condition. Pressured by Drake's tough, unbending grandfather, who demanded immediate results, the therapist feared that overly stringent treatment would only tear his family further apart. He would only speak to his mother, who brought the boy, clutching his beloved stuffed tiger, Friend, to Hayden. This would certainly be one of Torey Hayden's most difficult cases, for how do you reach a child so horrifically abused that she views every attempt to break through her defenses as life-threatening? Drake was a charming, charismatic four-year-old who managed to participate fully in his preschool class without uttering a single word. What she had suffered during that time was a mystery, since she refused to speak of it, and all attempts to get to the root of her erratic, increasingly violent behavior had hitherto failed. While working in the children's psychiatric ward of a large city hospital, Hayden was introduced to seven-year-old Cassandra, a child who had been kidnapped by her father and found three states away, starving, dirty, and picking through garbage cans.

But it wasn't until she left the classroom that she faced three of her most extraordinary challenges. For decades, former special education teacher Torey Hayden has been a light in the darkness for severely troubled children, and she has chronicled her determined efforts, triumphs, and breakthroughs in a series of internationally bestselling books, beginning with her powerful and poignant One Child.

Twilight Children by Torey L. Hayden