Torey L. Hayden’s One Child is a very sensitive report of the relationship that grew and developed between Ms. Hayden, a special education teacher, and one of her pupils, a six-year old girl named Sheila L. Sheila was a tragic example of a child who has been abused and neglected. The daughter of a 14-year-old mother, Sheila was born in poverty and raised in abuse, including being abandoned by her mother on a busy freeway when she was just six years old.

This abuse led Sheila to violent behavior, and she was arrested for the act of setting a playmate, a young boy, on fire. She was then sentenced to be committed to a state hospital for …