Product Description

A poignant tale traces a boy's difficult and painful struggle to come to terms with his father's homosexuality and AIDS, before it is too late. Reprint. AB. SLJ. H. PW.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1964651 in Books
• Published on: 1996-09-01
• Released on: 1996-09-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 144 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Liam contends with a web of family secrets and lies when his father reveals he has AIDS. In a boxed review, PW said, "Fox's prose is fraught with perception.... Readers cannot help but be deeply affected." Ages 12-up. (Oct.) r
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
Grade 8-12?Liam, a high school freshman, learns that his father is dying of AIDS. Suddenly, his comfortable family is in pieces, and his father has gone to live in a seashore cottage two hours from the family's city apartment. Distanced from both parents by secrets each of them seems compelled to keep, Liam remembers having seen his father embrace a young man years before?a friend, his father had said. In the remainder of the book, Liam and his parents wrestle with truths that encompass not just disappointment and betrayal, but intense love. This is far more than a problem novel. AIDS is integral to the plot, the issue is handled well, and the character who has AIDS is portayed sympathetically, but the book's scope is broader than that. It is a subtly textured exploration of the emotions of grief that will appeal to the same young people drawn to Mollie Hunter's A Sound of Chariots (HarperCollins, 1972) and Cynthia Rylant's Missing May (Orchard, 1992). Dramatic tension is palpable, sustained in part by a dazed, timeless quality in Liam's slow reckoning with loss. The characters are neither idealized nor demonized, and Fox's take on Liam as a confused, seethingly angry, tight-lipped, surreptitiously tender teenager has the ring of authenticity. Some in the target audience may find the action too slow or the mood too dark, but those who persevere will be rewarded by the novel's truthfulness.?Claudia Morrow, Berkeley Public Library, CA
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
TITLR /*Starred Review*/ Gr. 6-10. Liam's father is dying of AIDS. He got it from a blood transfusion, Liam's mother says. My father has cancer, Liam tells his girlfriend. But Liam remembers what he has made himself forget, that more than two years earlier he had seen his father embrace a young man on the beach. Now, through the long, dreary months of the illness, while his father lives alone in a rented cottage on the shore, Liam goes through a tangled mess of denial, anger, shame, grief, and empathy. As in Fox's Village by the Sea (1988), there's an unkind relative, an aunt who knows she's mean and is helpless to be otherwise. And as in One-Eyed Cat (1984), the sick parent is flawed, funny, gentle. Fox writes in ordinary words about universal things: love and death and lies and also time and memory--how they seem and what they are. The story confronts our deepest fears: what if the scarecrow beggar out there on the street, the statistic in sex-ed class, the demon of the howling mob came right into our comfortable home? Scenes burn in your memory: that embrace on the beach, the suppressed fury in the pauses of conversation. Fox avoids nothing about the dying and the anguish of survival. The plain note Philip leaves for his wife and son says it all: "My two dears. There's hardly anything left of me."

Customer Reviews

I think that thes book is great
Eagle kite.By Paula Fox was about a ten year old boy named Liam. Laim smashed and buried his Eagle Kite that his father had givenhim. It was the day that he saw his father on the beach with someone else. Liam has kept that memory for three years. Now liam's mother knows that his is sick from a blood transfusion . Liam knows the truth about what had happend to his father. He also knows how his father has betrayed them ever since.Liam and his mother know that their is nothing they can do and his father is soon to die

Insightful and Amzing
The only problem with this book is that it is too short.

Paula Fox manages to paint a picture of our society within the microcosm of a family that reflects the good and bad attitudes many otherwise good people have regarding gays and AIDS. Don't be put off by any warnings. The people, both young and old, who have trouble with the book reflect more of their own personal problems in dealing with the subject matter. After speaking to several middle school students who found the book at a recent book fair, I discovered that they were able to empathize with Liam, the hero of the story. The only thing they couldn't understand is why Liam's mother and aunt behaved the way they did. They could see in the adults' attempts to protect the boy that they were hurting him more than helping him.

This is a book that should be a welcome addition to any classroom library. It would even make an excellant text on which to base a series of lessons on tolerance and acceptance.

"The Eagle Kite" soars.

Th Eagle Kite Is A True Work Of Beauty
When I first heard of this book I was sincerly interested. But when I read it- it was everything, even more than what I hoped for. It was desciptive, honest, and completly heart wrenching. Liam's father had AIDs. Liam was told it came from bad Blood Tranfusions. Liam didn't agree with this. Liam remembered the day he saw his father on the beach. He was not alone. In fact, he was embracing someone. But yet, not just any someone. Liams father was embracing a man. Liam could not forget about this. It stayed inside him, and in my opinion was eating him alive, just like AIDs was eating his father. Liam found the courage to forgive his father. That really touched me. Because, I know the exact feeling of having to have your family angry and hurt by you, but then to have them except and forgive you. The Eagle Kite was definetly a book all families should read. I also think it would be wonderful inspiration for families who are having poblems that include a gay person in the family. The ending was ironic, but I shouldn't give it away for the people who havent read it. Enjoy!