Working Together Against Racism

School Library Journal

Gr 6-10These titles feature large type, numerous black-and-white and occasional full-color photographs (rarely placed beside related text), open formats, and clear writing styles. Unfortunately, AIDS suffers from awkward sentence structure and typographical errors. Statements occasionally contradict those presented in other sources, but no discussions of differing viewpoints are provided. Information is sometimes unclear, e.g., ``When someone makes fun of a drug user, it hurts us all. When someone won't let a child with AIDS go to school, it hurts all children.'' Some terms are defined in the text, others in the glossary, and others not at all. The five titles listed for further reading include one that is above the book's intended age level and another that deals with coping with a parent's death. Michael Thomas Ford's 100 Questions and Answers about AIDS (New Discovery, 1992), Mary Kittredge's Teens with AIDS Speak Out (Messner, 1992), and Charles Cozic and Karin Swisher's The AIDS Crisis (Greenhaven, 1991) will be more useful to readers researching AIDS for personal or scholastic reasons. Racism is more of a history of civil rights in America than a description of ways to work against it. Emphasis is placed on the concerns and accomplishments of blacks; other minorities are given little or no attention. Better choices on the topic include John Langone's Spreading Poison (Little, 1993) and Linda Mizell's Racism (Walker, 1992). Sara Bullard's Free at Last (Oxford, 1993) and Ellen Levine's Freedom's Children (Putnam, 1993) are better sources of information on the civil rights movement.Dona Weisman, Northeast Texas Library System, Garland