One Can’t Turn Away From the Screams of Child Abuse : Writer of storybooks for young people has a chilling encounter with the horror of the violation. She pledges to dedicate herself to helping the helpless.

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.” Of course the brave childhood comeback wasn’t quite true. Other children’s unkind words did hurt. But those hurts would usually pass.

That’s not the case with the injuries caused by taunts, sticks, stones, fists and other forms of violence used by some parents on their young. For a myriad of reasons, and all too often, some parents do hurt, some even torture and kill their young. We all know this. Its nothing new. Yet we continue to tolerate it.

Until recently, for me at least, child abuse was far away, like a make-believe horror story on television, a horror story one could never quite understand or bear to watch. I could always change the station.

I write children’s storybooks created to elevate the ethics of the next generation, to teach tolerance and understanding. To me, the following true story seems to be more than a coincidence. It seems more like a message: Wake up and do something!

About a year ago I installed a nationwide 800 number at our office in Northridge. People could telephone this number, ask questions and place orders directly with us for storybooks about real-life situations.

From the beginning, an ominous series of calls was mixed in among the rest. Almost daily we would receive calls from people who had misdialed. They were trying to reach a hot line designed to prevent child abuse.

“You’ve dialed the wrong number,” we would tell the caller, not knowing at the time what number they needed to dial. Yet, so often the caller only seemed to be half listening. Often one could hear the cries or screams of children in the background. Often I would find myself jolted from the complacency of my world and momentarily dropped into the terror of theirs.

We had all heard the stories, but here was reality. . . . A father who wanted my input on the potential harm if he were to rape his 4-month-old daughter lying naked next to him. The mother of a 9-month-old who was convinced the child was trying to “get her goat” by crying. In call after call after call, parents asked for the free brochure being offered by the organization.

And these were parents who recognized they had a problem! These were parents who were trying to get help, trying to somehow change or understand the dynamics of their situation. What about all of those who refused to even contemplate the evil of their action?

Abuse of children is all too commonplace and all too often excused, tolerated. “Mind your own business. Who are you to tell me how to raise my kid!”

I decided that the time had passed for turning my head away, that each of us has a responsibility to confront evil and protect the powerless, the helpless.

It is our business to help any child being abused by any adult. If we don’t prevent abuse, we deserve the violent society we have come to see every day on our streets and on television. If we want our children to live in a less violent environment, we had better raise them in one and find a way to make sure our neighbors do too.

I changed my 800 number because I was asked to do so, so the callers could get the help they needed.

Those calls have been the catalyst for me. Though we have just released a book titled “Sarah,” which focuses on childhood sexual abuse, the next one I will write will focus on other forms of child abuse. It will be called “Words and Stones and Bones.”

I will fight to eliminate child abuse through the medium of the storybook.

What will you do?