Have You Seen These Children?

A Memoir

By: Veronica Slaughter

Narrated by: Leslie S. Miller

Four young children caught between love and hate - hostages to the cruelty of revenge. A deceitful American father and a naïve decision by a Filipino mother transformed their lives forever.

Valorie, Veronica, Vance, and Vincent’s perfect world turned into a nightmare one hot afternoon in 1959 in Cebu, Philippines. What was to be a quick lunch with their father turned into a flight to America, where four dreadfully long years of running from state to state, hiding, and vanishing into the night followed. Kidnapped from the only world they knew, confusion quickly set in.

At nine, Valorie, the eldest, liked seeing their father after his absence of more than a year. Vance, a timid six-year-old, went along with whatever Valorie did. Vincent, the baby at three, cried for his mother while clinging to Veronica for comfort. Veronica, eight, was the only one who was truly panicked by what was happening around them - and she recognized instantly that she and her siblings would have to stick together in order to survive. In that moment, her childhood ended and the warrior within her emerged.

Moving from state to state and school to school, avoiding the law, looking over their shoulders at every turn, the four Slaughter children found themselves fighting not only the heartbreak of separation from their loving mother, but also poverty, discrimination, and abuse. Their only weapons were their deep love for one another and an unwavering determination to survive the trials they faced - and find their way back to their mother.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2020 Veronica Slaughter (P)2020 Veronica Slaughter

Stirring and real, with an undercurrent of Love

It’s tough to quantify the extent to which this book has impacted me. All children have to grow up, and part of that process is realizing your heroes, or your parents, are flawed creatures. However the rate and manner in which the Slaughter children became disillusioned with the world that surrounded them breaks the heart and will affect your mood for days to follow. Kidnapped from the Philippines, and facing abuse, hunger, neglect, mistrust and danger at the hands of the person who you are supposed to trust and keep you safe the most cuts deep, and the scar tissue is ever-present in Slaughter’s prose.

To hear this book is to witness a slow-motion car crash. You see the danger and trauma being played out in real time, and you cannot turn away. From the first few chapters of the book you as a reader are invested in this twisted adventure of destroyed youth and unfaltering love between siblings.

Slaughter’s prose is written with the voice of a child with the hindsight of an older, more mature woman. However, given the events of her life and the stories outlined in this memoir, the narration never feels out of place or inappropriate. Additionally, Leslie S. Miller does a wonderful job giving childlike whimsy and character to Slaughter’s narration.

You honestly feel every lie, every blow, and every stress-induced stomach ache as Veronica matures 20 years in the span of 4. However crushing the story gets in this memoir, Slaughter always leaves the reader with a glimmer of hope as the love and bond between her and her siblings is interwoven in every sentence of this touching tale.

An Amazing Story!

I cannot recommend this book enough! it really is a must read!
The way Veronica is able to retell her story from the eyes of her 8 year old self makes you feel as if you're experiencing everything with her. As a mother I found myself drawn in and emotionally connected!

An amazing and beautifully written story

This memoir is amazing. I couldn’t stop listening. I guess we all have stories and not always happy ones. I hated for it to end.

Can’t stop listening... So well performed and amazing story!

I love the voice actor, Leslie S. Miller. She does an awesome job of really putting you behind the eyes of an 8 year old girl torn from her mother. I loved it and you will love it too. Give it a listen!

Fabulously written

This was such an amazing story of a young, brave, girl trying to figure things out. I was gifted the book. Read it, bought 2 other copies for friends and family to read AND purchased the audio book to listen again!

Tragic, interesting, harrowing, and remarkable!

I just finished, Have You Seen These Children? A Memoir by Veronica Slaughter. What a page-turner. Veronica’s story of hope and faith drives the tragic, harrowing, and unfair story of 4 children being torn from their Mother by their Father, at such crucial young ages. This memoir shares the deep love between a daughter and her Mother. Veronica, 8 at the time of being seized from her happy life in the Philippines by her deceiving, ruthless, pathological Father is heart wrenching. This is any mother’s worst nightmare. While the children moved state to state with an unstable lunatic in the United States, I can only imagine how upset her mother was with no way of getting here to save her babies.

Thankfully the children are resilient and hopeful. Veronica’s true grit gets her and her siblings through all sorts of trials and tribulations until she is in her Mother’s arms once again. Veronica, who not even the oldest, knew to keep her siblings together and take care of her youngest brother.

I wept at the end knowing what type of life this must have been and how it led to adult lives not lived to their full potentials. Thankfully, Veronica thrived and had a life full of success yet tragedy still leered behind the bends for her siblings. May you, Veronica, lead a long life like her mother! A story of true resiliency.