Silent Boy by Torey Hayden

From the author of Sunday Times bestsellers One Child and Ghost Girl comes a heartbreaking story of a boy trapped in silence and the teacher who rescued him. 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. Torey refused to give 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.

I think this has probably become my favourite Torey Hayden novel, it has a happy ending :) But it's a hectic story ... one thing I find when I read some of these non-fiction books is I simply cannot believe how some people treat their kids, those who are supposed to be most precious to them.