SPEAKING OUT

The author of Fighting Back: What Some People Are Doing About AIDS (1989) gets at the heart of subtle encounters with prejudice during a year at Manhattan's multiethnic Bayard Rustin High School. Her interviews, plus observations of classes and clubs, bring out the roles parents play (positive and negative) in perceptions of self and others as experienced by African-Americans, Latinos, Caucasians, Asians, multiracial kids, short kids, fat kids, stutterers, homosexuals, immigrants, and ``special-ed'' youngsters. As might be expected, the more talk of differences there is, the more the students realize commonalities. Guided by excellent teachers committed to keen probing about multiculturalism and recognition of diversity (and perhaps influenced by the reporter in their midst), their mixing becomes less superficial. Kuklin definitely captures the edge/excitement/hope/despair of contemporary New York. Splendid b&w portrait photos. (Nonfiction. 12+)