Customer Reviews

Nobody's Children: Orphans of the HIV Epidemic (Haworth Social Work Practice)

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The subject of AIDS orphans is extremely important and deserves a comprehensive analysis which is not available in this very confused book. Part "moving" stories, part statistical lists--it is hard to see the connection between the title (Orphans of the HIV Epidemic) and the mass of unedited meandering writing. It would indeed be important to have a book about gay parenting or substance abuse among women or AIDS orphans, but this book tries to tackle all of these subjects and as a result deals with none. The children themselves appear only as a superficial examples offered to voyeuristic readers seeking some kind of cheap emotional thrill ("how they suffer!") and little of their own voice actually comes through. At times the writing itself is so ungrammatical that it is difficult to know what the writer is trying to express. As both a social work researcher and community activist in the field of HIV, I find this book to be unrevealing and of little use. Hopefully, this subject will someday merit a comprehensive book. Nobody's Children is definitely not it.

I read this book as part of a college level course on AIDS. The focus of my study was on the effect the AIDS virus has on children, not as the infected, but as a result of others infections. Dansky is a gay male counselor who knows his subject matter well. He gets in the hearts and minds of these kids and those who love him. The stories they share are amazingly affecting. We hear about children losing parents, siblings, and friends to a disease that is completely beyond their control. This should be required reading for anyone in a high school health class. Reading it will change your views forever.