RYAN WHITE: MY OWN STORY by...

RYAN WHITE: MY OWN STORY by Ryan White and Ann Marie Cunningham (Signet: $4.99, illustrated). An adolescent hemophiliac who got AIDS from contaminated blood products, Ryan White attracted national attention when he was denied admission to a school in Kokomo, Ind. Elton John, Michael Jackson and other celebrities took up White’s cause, and his battle for acceptance became the subject of a television movie. “My Own Story” could easily have been a facile tear-jerker, but Cunningham works White’s recollections into an affectionate portrait of a warm, somewhat mischievous kid who just wanted to live like an ordinary teen-ager. White is the perfect “innocent victim” of an insidious disease; he never whines and he tries to forgive--but not excuse--the friends and teachers who cruelly rejected him. This unflagging decency reveals the inherent ugliness of the irrational hatred and fear AIDS too often engenders, hatred White courageously defied.