Part of Penguin Workshop’s popular Who HQ series, this short (112-page) volume offers tween readers a first look at this sobering subject. It opens in 1987, in Washington, DC, during the first public display of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, larger than a football field and still growing. “Most of the victims of the AIDS crisis were gay men,” it tells us. “But seven years into the epidemic, the disease was spreading to more Americans than ever before.”
“The story of the AIDS crisis is one of fear,” it continues, but adds that it is also a story of hope and of science and discovery fighting to outsmart the virus.
The book then moves back to 1979, when the first men in the U.S. began coming down with a strange new virus—and then dying. It offers personal profiles of several of its early victims, putting faces behind the raw numbers of deaths. We are taken through the fear-filled days when it was seen as a “gay cancer,” although the book is careful to note how viewing it as a gay disease led to harmful misunderstandings. We learn, too, that it was the gay community that took the lead in fighting the disease and caring for the sick, and we see the shameful way the government ignored it for years.
Author Nico Medina also weaves in a brief look at the early LGBTQ rights movement and at gay life in the decade after Stonewall. He acknowledges that for many, “gay and straight people alike,” the era of “free love” meant having many sexual partners, and that this was a contributing factor in spreading the disease.
We see how individuals like Larry Kramer and others, along with organizations like Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC) and drag-queen group the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, helped care for those with AIDS and shared information about how to prevent its spread. We learn how misinformation about AIDS contributed to fear of gay people and to stigma—and again, Medina emphasizes, “These fears were not based in fact.” Eventually, public attitudes started to shift, but activist groups like ACT UP made it clear change was not happening fast enough. This brings us back to and beyond the 1987 March on Washington, as the book then shows how ACT UP continued to push for action.
We then see how scientific advances led to more effective treatments and the increasing hope of a cure. The book closes by looking at the still large number of people living with HIV/AIDS worldwide, and notes that in the U.S., people with low incomes and people of color are affected at higher rates because of the cost of health care and medications. Until no one has AIDS, it concludes, the work against it continues.
Pull boxes through out the text offer additional information on the science of the virus, HIV and blood banks, what it means to be LGBTQ, the AIDS Walk, details of public policy, the AIDS Memorial Quilt, HIV/AIDS on stage and screen, HIV/AIDS in Africa, and more.
My only two criticisms are: 1) I would have like a little more about the devastating impact of AIDS in Africa; and 2) The two general LGBTQ history books for young readers listed in the bibliography feel dated or have significant gaps. Gay America: Struggle for Equality, was published back in 2008; Stonewall: Breaking Out in the Fight for Gay Rights, while a bit newer (2015), focuses on mostly White gay men but overlooks pivotal transgender activists of color Sylvia Rivera and Marsha Johnson; some of its phrasing around transgender identities, too, is confusing at best. (I would have gone with Pride: The Celebration and the Struggle and The Stonewall Riots: Coming Out in the Streets; I also like the recent Pride: An Inspirational History of the LGBTQ+ Movement and History Comics: The Stonewall Riots: Making a Stand for LGBTQ Rights, although those two were published too late for inclusion in What Is the AIDS Crisis?)
What Is the AIDS Crisis? itself, however, is a solid, thoughtful book that doesn’t flinch from looking at the horrors of the disease, how the lack of government response cost lives, and the vital role of community activists. The emphasis on personal stories, not just facts and events, keep this history engaging and relevant to young readers.
