Alex, the Kid with AIDS [Hardcover]

I really enjoyed the way the author handled this issue with regards to the boy Alex, a fourth grader with AIDS. The only part of the book I found disturbing was that of how the teacher reacted to the poem that was written about her. I did not think it was right that she would not enter it into the contest because she did not like it.

AIDS comes to real children. That was my thought or "leading idea" in writing this book. I felt when it was published that we had seen a considerable number of responsible books appear for children that taught "the basics," either in straightforward style of a didactic text, or in the framework of a teaching story.

I wanted this title to become part of the emotional side of AIDS education because the hardest problem for elementary age children (and older as well) is not that a classmate has a disease that is "yukky" or mysterious, but, that a classmate is slowly dying. Since the late 80s when I began working on this text, and created a character who at that time was ten, contracting AIDS from a transfusion is less common than it was prior to 1981 (the presumable birth year of a child age 10 in 1991), but even today it is not impossible, and term "blood transfusion" can, of course, mean that a mother, in her twenties, might have become HIV positive from a transfusion up to a decade prior to that, and then, transmit the HIV positive condition to her baby; aside from the simplification I chose in deciding how ALEX got AIDs, I felt the book might have a future because the US population of school age children with AIDS has grown during the 1990s and during the first decade of the 2000s. The last decade has seen so many improvements in our treatments for AIDS in very young children that children born HIV positive who once would have died within months or a couple of years are living longer -- into the upper elementary age group, where ALEX THE KID WITH AIDS is set. And, they can have years of relatively healthy living, while HIV positive and even with AIDS in active status. Some critics have said Alex should be "sicker," but that is not medically correct for the age group this is showing. This book will soon be twenty years old; I'm proud of the fact that, in showing that people can live in relative good health for a very long time while HIV positive, made it a book with a future relevance overall. A child with AIDS is not necessarily "on his death bed." That is an unnecessary stigma.
The book can be used with any situation where a child is still in school, and is dying of an incurable disease. AIDS kills off the immune system; the usual cause of death is not AIDS itself but the opportunistic diseases and infections that take hold -- so an "AIDS death" in a child often has a different immediate cause and a death certificate will not always indicate the presence of underlying HIV status. As Alex receives blood transfusions and drugs to keep him going, the book's backdrop is a long battle of doctors against immune deficiency. My goal in using the transfusion as the source of Alex's problem is that nothing he or his parents did or failed to do "caused" his condition. This clarifies and simplifies the plotting of the book so that the emotional base can be where I wanted it to be -- on dealing with impending but not immediate, "any day now" death in a classmate, and not letting the opportunity for friendship disappear.

Real children feel stigmatized by any condition that is not curable. They make friends differently; Michael at first knows Alex is not contagious, but he still feels aversion; both the friend and the child who is dying must come to terms with both friendship and fear or loneliness. I wanted to write a book that would touch upon these "softer" yet perhaps deeper themes, at a time when AIDS education per se (info that AIDS does not spread by ordinary contact, yet the warnings about blood contact, etc.) is the "easy part" and is probably taking place in many schools and families as it should -- calmly and without emotional overlays. Handling the children's feelings beneath that was one of my goals.

To the critic who disliked the book because she felt a teacher "should not" dismiss a poem from a contest merely because it makes fun of a teacher, I say, check it out in a real school: many will disagree! Alex makes fun of a teacher, but the book never makes fun of Alex, ever. The poem Alex writes is "out of bounds" as many people would see it. In fact, a more realistic "objection" to my plot might be that Alex's parents, if they saw the poem, would probably discourage him from submitting such an unkind poem to a school contest, since that's a form of "publication" and Mrs. Zanes is a real person with feelings. That's why Alex writes it in class and submits it without mentioning his parents. Moral reasoning comes though when the narrator Michael asks Alex that night, "Are you sure we can put a poem about a teacher in the contest?" and Alex replies, "I told you, I can. I'm sick." The narrator knows that a poem like this might be dismissed from the contest in many places as "inappropriate" by teachers. I'll defend the reality of this point. Editors at Whitman felt so, too. Of course Alex's poem is "nasty," but so are real children at times, and Alex HAS developed the idea that he can get away with stuff. Thsi is not "making fun" of Alex. It moves the plot forward. It could spark thought and discussion among readers. I disagree with authors for children who feel everything in a book must always be "nice" and kids can never make mistakes, and I disagree that a child with a serious illness must always be shown as a sweet angel, passively accepting help and friendship from others, etc.

I am mystified by the comment someone made that this book "makes fun of children with AIDS." The use of humor with a serious subject may be unusual in what we used to call "bibliotherapy" but, Alex is never ridiculed in any way!!! The teacher scolds him, but, it's justified, and has a good result. Alex, in his own way, and his friend Michael, the narrator, both are heroes in the book, not only for coming to terms with his probably-fatal illness, but for realizing that even a life-threatening illness does not entitle anyone to be "above the law" in the classroom or with his peers. While he lives, he decides he wants to be, and should be, part of the class. He's not the "untouchable." Alex has no control over AIDS or his fate. But he does decide who he is, while he's alive. I like to have children who are active in all my books, who think and react and create themselves as confident, social children. He can be asked for attitudes and actions in school like any other student, even though he and his classmates are all grieving over the inevitable loss. This is what I work toward.

While Alex is an active, alive character in the book, becoming who he wants to be, AIDS education should be multi-dimensional, in my view, not "just the facts." The undercurrent of modeling or teaching that can take place through a good plot should touch upon much more than mere medical facts, even though correct medical facts are also very important to convey, amidst all the misconceptions and stigmatizing misinformation that continues to appear out there. It has been very gratifying to see that, in the almost 20 years since 1991, this book not only went from hardcover to paperback, to reach a far wider audience, but, was well reviewed in leading journals as "first and best a good story," (BCCB)and also "both convincing and entertaining" (Booklist), but is still out there at huge discounts today, still making a contribution to an area of need.

I have never had to deal with AIDS at first hand. But for this book, I conducted a lot of research and worked with professionals in therapy and medical fields, to create the book, at a time when the average American thought there were no, or very, very few children in schools, who are HIV positive, and for those that there were, there was a civil right to secrecy. Even though an author is not the one giving "reviews" to a book, it has stayed out there, afloat, and selling to various users, for nineteen years. Not every book is for everyone. Nonetheless I think the survival of this unusual, narrow-purpose book is testimony to the richness of our American field of books that, if they can deliver "a good story," can approach sensitive subjects and find the right audience. Today most children dying of AIDS are on other continents, not North America. Until we find a cure, however, we do not know what the future of this dilemma may be.

I love Most of Linda Girard's books, but this is the worst children's book I ever touched. It deserves a TURKEY instead of a star. It makes fun of children with AIDS. It says in this book that Alex got AIDS from a transfusion. It is no longer possible to get AIDS from blood transfusions because all donated blood is tested for HIV and AIDS. Don't waste your money on this piece of junk. Insteas buy the CD "For Our Children."

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 3 reviews  3.3 out of 5 stars