Book Isn’t Magic for Some Retailers

Some store chains are refusing to sell Magic Johnson’s book on preventing AIDS because of its blunt language about how to avoid the sexually transmitted disease.

Times Books Publisher Peter Osnos said Kmart Corp. and the Walgreen’s Co. drug store chains were among retailers objecting to “What You Can Do To Avoid AIDS.”

Johnson retired from professional basketball because he has the AIDS virus.

Kmart spokeswoman Mary McGeachy said “the book is very informative, but it’s also very graphic. It should be available to teen-agers, . . . (but not) a 3-year-old while their mother is buying a lawn mower.”

The retailer is carrying the book in its Waldenbooks subsidiary, however.

Kmart’s main stores carry a limited number of books, and most are geared toward young children, McGeachy said from the company’s headquarters in Troy.

“We found some of the material inappropriate for a neighborhood drug store,” Walgreen’s spokesman Michael Polzin said of the decision not to carry the book. He declined to elaborate.

The American Medical Assn. has endorsed the book, said Osnos, who added that it is selling well.