Pedro and Me: Friendship, Loss, and What I Learned - Softcover

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Rezensionen

Grade 9 Up-In graphic-novel format, Winick addresses the moral depth of friendship, the molding processes of family, the attention required to discern and pursue a vocation, HIV education, acceptance of gay-identifying youth by themselves and by their families, and the role of death in the human life cycle. The author does a stellar job of marrying image to word to form a flowing narrative. He introduces readers to his own formation as a cartoonist wanna-be, and how he landed a role in MTV's The Real World series in order to live rent-free in San Francisco for six months. Among his television producer-selected roommates was Pedro Zamora, a Cuban immigrant who developed HIV as a teenager. Pedro's response to his diagnosis was to become an HIV educator, traveling around the nation to give informed and inspirational speeches in venues that included schools. Zamora and Winick became close friends after the author's initial trepidation about sharing living space with a gay man infected with the AIDS virus. The role of another of their roommates, a female Asian-American medical student, both in Winick's education and his personal life, is nicely folded into his account. The story continues through Zamora's decline and death to the periods of grieving and grief recovery that followed for Winick, Zamora's family, and his many friends. This is an important book for teens and the adults who care about them. Winick handles his topics with both sensitivity and a thoroughness that rarely coexist so seamlessly.
Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley Public Library, CA
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In this powerful and captivating graphic novel, Winick, a professional cartoonist and cast member of MTV's The Real World 3: San Francisco, pays tribute to his Real World housemate and friend Pedro Zamora, an AIDS activist and educator who died of the disease in 1994. Striking just the right balance of cool and forthrightness sure to attract a broad cross section of teens, twenty-somethings and beyond, Winick describes the special bond he developed with Zamora and shares some of his own journey to enlightenment about AIDS awareness. From Winick's initial preconceptions about the disease to the ultimate moments of heartbreaking loss, the author bravely invites readers into a life-altering experience. The result is never mawkish: Winick speaks of his friend not with otherworldly awe, but with palpable love and warmth and profound admiration. Readers unfamiliar with the graphic novel genre would do well to start with this title. Winick imbues deceptively simple black-and-white comic-strip art with a full spectrum of emotion, and his approach is particularly adept at conveying Zamora's mind-set; for instance, a series of partial views of Zamora driving, just after he's received the news that he's HIV positive, communicates Zamora's anxiety and confusion. Throughout, Winick depicts Zamora as a vital force, a tireless teacher using frank language to relate facts about how people contract the virus that causes AIDS, how they can prevent it and how they can live with it. An innovative and accessible approach to a difficult subject. Ages 14-up. (Sept.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Gr. 8-12. Winick, part of the 1993 television cast of MTV's Real World, San Francisco, uses his cartoonist skills to take readers back to the house where the show was set and tell the story of his fellow cast mate Pedro Zamora, an AIDS educator who died in 1994 from complications related to HIV. Part lesson about AIDS, part biographical sketch, this book differs from the many graphic novels that rely on action drawings or high-octane plotting. It's facial expressions that count most here, and they are Winick's forte as he briefly recalls how he came to the show, his evolving friendship with Zamora, whose background he describes, and his growing understanding of AIDS, which broadened the boundaries of his world. More about the show would have been useful: Winick assumes familiarity with the setup and cast, which some teens may not have. And the resemblance between Winick and Zamora in the artwork (a photo on the jacket does show some likeness in real life) is occasionally disconcerting. Most memorable is Winick's heartfelt description of Zamora's final days (he died at the age of 22), which are described with great tenderness and a keen sense of the loss of a friend. Stephanie Zvirin
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