Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Somebody Else’s Kids | 1981 | Torey Hayden | Buy |
| 2 | Murphy’s Boy / Silent Boy | 1983 | Torey Hayden | Buy |
| 3 | Just Another Kid | 1988 | Torey Hayden | Buy |
| 4 | Ghost Girl | 1991 | Torey Hayden | Buy |
| 5 | Beautiful Child | 2002 | Torey Hayden | Buy |
| 6 | Twilight Children | 2005 | Torey Hayden | Buy |
| 7 | Teaching Children Who Are Hard to Reach: Relationship-Driven Classroom Practice | 2012 | Torey Hayden | Buy |
| 8 | Lost Child | 2019 | Torey Hayden | Buy |
| 9 | The Invisible Girl | 2021 | Torey Hayden | Buy |
Torey Hayden’s non-fiction memoirs each focus on a different child or group of children she worked with during her career as a special education teacher and child psychologist. Somebody Else’s Kids (1981) tells the stories of four children in her classroom, including a boy who echoed other people’s words, a girl with brain damage from parental beatings, and a twelve-year-old cast out of school after becoming pregnant. Murphy’s Boy / Silent Boy (1983) is about a teenager who stopped speaking entirely.
The pattern continued over the next four decades. Just Another Kid (1988) brought together a child with severe behavioral problems and the child’s mother, who needed nearly as much help. Ghost Girl (1991) follows Jadie, an eight-year-old who was so withdrawn that other students treated her as if she were invisible. Beautiful Child (2002) describes Hayden’s work with a seven-year-old girl named Venus whose near-catatonic state turned out to mask elective mutism. Twilight Children (2005) weaves together the stories of three children, while Lost Child (2019) and The Invisible Girl (2021) show that Hayden’s career has produced new stories well into her later years. Teaching Children Who Are Hard to Reach (2012), co-authored with Marlene Thayer, is the one academic title in the group, combining classroom practice with the relationship-driven approach that defines all her work.