Sister Mary Elizabeth Lloyd

I received a copy of AIDS Orphans Rising from the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program quite a while ago and had never gotten around to reading it until recently. I believe that perhaps I was expecting more from this book and in the end felt somewhat let down. I thought that it might have more personal narratives of the children who have been orphaned by this terrible epidemic, but there was very little in the way of individual stories, only a few brief accountings to illustrate a particular point. I had also expected it to focus on the orphans of Africa, but the author randomly threw in information and statistics on AIDS orphans in other countries as well. In my opinion, it made the topic feel a bit too broad. What the book does cover is just the basics of what a child-headed household is and what life is like for them. Chapter topics include: Where do they live?, What do they eat?, How do they survive?, and What's best for them?. For me, it was rather dry reading, and simplistic information, most of which probably could have been found easily online. In my opinion, the entire book had the feel of a college research paper.

I realize it may not be the fault of the author, but some of the photos are very dark and difficult to make out. At least one photo mentioned a color in the caption, but since all of them are printed in black and white, there is no way to tell for sure what was meant. In general, I thought the pictures could have been better organized. Often the text would refer to a photo, but I would them have to turn the page to find it. Also, in my experience with language mechanics, exclamation marks should be used pretty sparingly, but Sr. MaryBeth uses them a lot in her book, often to end sentences which didn't really need them.

Each chapter wraps up with suggestions for things that the reader can do right now to help. Some of the ideas such as praying for them, giving money to organizations that specifically help child-headed households, or giving of your time to travel with a charitable organization to a country where child-headed households are prevalent to assist them were things I could have easily come up with on my own. Some of the other suggestions, such as contracting a local real estate agency to see what they could do, were a bit confusing to me, and still others talked of personally taking/giving items to the children. In this case, I wasn't sure if she was saying to ship them overseas or take them to local children in need. There were a few good ideas I hadn't thought of, but in my opinion, some of them were too open-ended, needing more guidance and clarification.

I hope that my review doesn't make me sound cold-hearted, because I do feel deeply for these children and their plight. In fact, that is what drove me to request the book in the first place. It just didn't turn out to be a huge inspiration to me personally. I could tell however, that Sr. MaryBeth has a big heart for the orphans especially those in child-headed households, and I wish her and all the others who are working for their well-being all the best in their endeavors. I'm sure there are other readers who may be more invigorated and motivated by AIDS Orphans Rising than I was. However, I couldn't help coming away from reading it feeling rather underwhelmed, and can't say that I learned much anything new or surprising.… (plus d'informations)

This is a painful yet inspirational book to read. Painful because of the overwhelming numbers, and inspirational because of the author's obvious love for her work and her charges. More than a book, it really is a booklet. Sister Lloyd brings the reader to the crisis of AIDS orphans and, presenting it as a solvable problem, sort of deals in with how this crisis can become manageable. Moreover, it implicates us all. We ARE, after all, our sister and brothers' keepers. I would recommend this book as a guidebook to all people working in NGOs as well as working with children in crisis and vulnerable populations. It is both heartbreaking and inspirational. It could, however, have been more in-depth on detailing strategies or helpful offering case studies.… (plus d'informations)

This book states in its introduction that it does not need to be read in order; the reader can skip from chapter to chapter. Unfortunately, it somewhat suffers if you do read it straight through - it's highly repetitive with some chapters having very little new information.

The actual information in the book is generally good, but some of the statistics are badly contextualized, and the large references section in the back depends heavily on web addresses, some of which are already outdated (as is inevitable with print web directories.) One other thing that bothered me a bit is that the author talks repeatedly about avoiding "the pornography of suffering" and exploitng the children for pity; and thenon the next pages there'll be a photographs with a caption like "offering bread to his dying mother before he takes some himself" and I can't help visualizing how that picture got taken.

And like other reviewers on this site, I was expecting (based on the blurb) for this to be much more about the actual day-to-day lives of children in child-headed households; there's just enough of that to make me want more, but the bulk of the book is about statistics and aid effort, with very little daily-life detail. It does read as promotional material rather than informational. I visualize this book serving its purpose very well left in a waiting room or a guest room for people to idly pick up and thumb through.

That said, the author clearly has experienced a lot in working with these children, cares about them, and *respects* them. The theme through the whole book of how, despite everything, these children are perfectly capable of coping *without* needing rich white adults to give them handouts, and that the goal of help should not be taking responsibility for them, but helping them build their own lives better, is a message that more people need to get out there. More and more initiatives to help disadvantages people are focussing on that sort of building help that also builds self-sufficiency - small business loans rather than hand-outs - and it's past time we realize that children are quite capable of doing amazing things for themselves, given half a chance.… (plus d'informations)