The Eagle Kite by Paula Fox Liam's father has AIDS, a crime that Liam cannot forgive. He is mad at his father for being gay, he is mad that his father committed adultery, he is mad that his parents are lying to him, and he is ashamed because he cannot tell his friends. Over the course of this book, which mostly covers the holidays of thanksgiving and chistmas, Liam tries to understand his father, and the ways in which his mother and aunt choose to deal with his father.
The title and subject of this book link it to the
Night Kite by M.E.Kerr. Both are about teenagers dealing with a family members with AIDS, and both use a kite to symbolize the family member. The similarity doesn't go much farther though. This story is told in a pensive manner, and the characters are not known to the reader, that is, we watch them from a distance. Liam does not display much maturity here, but neither do the other characters. This is a sad story; there is no happy ending. It was published 9 years ago, and it is my hope that the world has changed since then, but it has not yet changed enough for the subject here to be less relevant than when it was written.
Pensive reading.
