"If one writes well enough, one can capture not only an event on paper, but also the emotions and mood of the event. I remember thinking it was like being able to take a photograph of feelings. That struck me as a real kind of magic. I was mesmerized by the thought. I still am."

Her Life:

" I went to the unemployment center in the community where I was attending university and applied for the first job which was offered to me--that of a teaching assistant in a government program for disadvantaged migrant children--despite the fact that I was studying biology at the time and had no prior experience in the field."

"The director, who later became one of the most influential people in my career, was desperate for an extra pair of hands by the time I arrived. At eighteen, I was `thrown in' at the deep end to work on my own with a small group of difficult children who were disrupting the rest of the group. I began working four hours a week, fitting it around my science studies. By the end of my time there, I was working twenty-eight hours a week and fitting my studies around my time with the children. The rest is history! "

Torey says that she never felt I really at home in America. All through her childhood,she knew that she would leave the United States when she felt it was the right time. In the late seventies,when she was in Britain to give a series of lectures on my work with elective mutism she visited Wales and fell in love with the place.

She met and married her husband a few years later. The birth of our daughter followed. .

" My husband now owns a bookshop, while I enjoy the lifestyle of shepherd to our flock of one-hundred black Welsh mountain sheep when I am not writing or working. And our daughter is thriving."

Her Writings:

Six-year old Sheila never spoke, she never cried, and her eyes were filled with hate. Abandoned on a highway by her mother, abused by her alcoholic father, Sheila was placed in a class for the hopelessly retarded after she committed an atrocious act of violence against another child. Everyone said Sheila was lost forever--everyone except teacher Torey Hayden..

A small seven-year-old boy who couldn't speak except to repeat weather forecasts and other people's words...A beautiful little girl of seven who had been brain damaged by terrible parental beatings and was so ashamed because she couldn't learn to read...A violently angry ten-year-old who had seen his stepmother murder his father and had been sent from one foster home to another ...A shy twelve-year-old from a Catholic school which put her out when she became pregnant...

His name was Kevin but his keepers called him Zoo Boy. He didn’t talk. He hid under tables and surrounded himself with a cage of chairs. He hadn’t been out of the building in the four years since he’d come in. He was afraid of water and wouldn’t take a shower. He was afraid to be naked, to change his clothes. He was nearly 16.

Desperate to see change in the boy, the staff of Kevin’s adolescent treatment center hired Hayden. As Hayden read to him and encouraged him to read, crawling down into his cage of chairs with him, Kevin talked. Then he started to draw and paint and showed himself to have a quick wit and a rolling, seething, murderous hatred for his stepfather

And if the six small boys and girls are not enough, a disordered parent arrives on the scene. She is Ladbrooke, mother of autistic Leslie, formidably elegant, seductive, bristling with beauty, but also alcoholic, promiscuous and speechlessly hostile. The core of this story is Ladbrooke’s and Torey’s developing friendship, reminding us that love takes many forms. Ladbrooke wants to be “just another kid” in the class.

As a new teacher in a small Midwestern town, Torey meets eight-year-old Jadie, a child so wounded by the events in her life that she believes she is a ghost. With her inimitable blend of compassion, insight and masterful storytelling, Torey Hayden once more shows us the power of love and the resilience of the human spirit. Narrated with honesty and humanity, GHOST GIRL is both an insightful account of the problems of dealing with suspected child abuse and an utterly gripping psychological horror story.

When Hayden first met Sheila, she refused to speak, her only communication coming through bursts of destructive, violent behavior. After five intense months, Hayden successfully broke through to Sheila, and successfully fought to have her placed in a regular classroom.

Hayden did not see Sheila again until she was 13. Much to Hayden’s astonishment, Sheila remembered little about their extraordinary time together. As Hayden continues to renew her relationship with the teenage Sheila, the memories slowly come back, bringing with them feelings of abandonment and hostility.

Seven-year-old Venus Fox's unresponsiveness was so complete that Torey Hayden initially believed the child was deaf. Venus never spoke, never listened, never even acknowledged the presence of another human being in the room with her. Yet an accidental playground "bump" would release a rage frightening to behold, turning the little girl into a whirling dynamo of dangerous malice. Of the five children in Torey's classroom that September, Venus posed the greatest challenge-though the other four had serious problems of their own that could not be overlooked.

"As a classroom teacher, I am always looking for those books which draw students in, creating a world in which we, as a class, can enter. The Very Worst Thing is one of the best books I have used in my classroom. Torey Hayden confronts issues which our children face but often have difficulty articulating. The Very Worst Thing prompted discussions about bullying, standing up for what you believe, family, foster care, love, friendship, and keeping wild animals in captivity."

When special education teacher Torey Hayden left the classroom for work in a children's psychiatric ward, a diverse trio entered her life. Abused nine-year-old Cassandra lashed out at anyone who tried to get close. At four, Drake refused to speak to anyone but his mother, and after a stroke, elderly Gerda was trapped in crippling depression and self-imposed silence.