Paula Fox Critical Essay | Critical Review by English Journal

SOURCE: A review of The Eagle Kite, in English Journal, Vol. 85, No. 7, November 1996, p. 88.

In the following review, the anonymous critic finds The Eagle Kite a "haunting exploration of guilt."

Although The Eagle Kite is probably the shortest and easiest of the Honor Books to read, its haunting exploration of guilt may make it one of the most complex. First, is the guilt that thirteen-year-old Liam feels for hating his parents. He hates his mother for lying to him about how his father got AIDS. She said it was from a blood transfusion his father had during an appendicitis operation, but Liam knows from sex education class that blood transfusions have "been safe for years." Liam hates his father for loving a young man named Geoff and getting AIDS from him, and Liam hates himself for joining in the web of lies by pretending that he...
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