Book excerpt: Tormented physically and sexually by one boy in particular, and by the Brothers in general, John quickly learned to survive but at the cost of the loss of his childhood. Please Don’t Make Me Go tells in heart-rending detail the day-to-day lives of John and the other boys the beatings, the weapons fashioned from toilet chains and stones, the loneliness but we also see the development of Johns love of reading, his growing friendship with Father Delaney and his best friend, Bernard, and his unstinting love for his mother whom he feared was suffering at the hands of his violent father.