"Pedro and Me" is poignant and powerful.

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	• Pedro and Me Judd Winick Henry Holt and Co. (BYR), 2000 - 192 pages average customer review:based on 38 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

What I learned.

This is a graphic novel written and drawn by Judd Winick. Judd was a cast member of The Real World: San Francisco on MTV. This book is about his friendship with fellow cast member Pedro Zamora. If you watched the show, you know that Pedro was an HIV-positive homosexual who died of AIDS not long after the show was filmed. Judd and Pedro became very good friends during the filming of the show and remained close until Pedro's death. This is a very touching story that deservedly won several awards.

"Pedro and Me" is poignant and powerful.

Pedro and Me is a graphic novel that describes the friendship between two men who became friends while they were roommates on the MTV show The Real World. The author of Pedro and Me, Judd Winick, was a struggling cartoonist and was one of the roommates. Winick's friend and roommate, Pedro Zamora, was HIV positive and although only in his 20's, was a nationally known AIDS activist. Zamora died of AIDS within months after the taping of the show was completed.

In the summer of 1994, my husband and I had a college student, Susan, living with us. She was an intern working in the area,and we had offered our guest room to her for the summer. She became a part of our family; one of her favorite television shows was MTV's The Real World. Although my husband and I had not planned to watch the program, its compelling storyline of a young AIDS activist living with a group of strangers in downtown San Francisco drew us in, and we watched every episode. (Honestly, we felt a little silly watching a show designed for the "20-something" demographic.)

Having watched the television show, however, I was curious to see how Winick would bring his experiences to the graphic novel format. As a gifted artist and writer, Winick focuses briefly on what viewers saw "on-camera." Instead, he allows us to see beyond the show to the real friendship between the two men. His book, similar to Art Spiegelman's Maus I and Maus II, examines the human condition, and explores the subject of death with a sensitivity one finds in the best works of literature. When Zamora dies, readers grieve for the young man who had so much to offer the world. Readers grieve for Winick, too, who had the privilege of becoming Zamora's friend, only to lose him to AIDS within months of the beginning of that friendship.

Far from being "just a comic book," Pedro and Me is poignant and powerful and deserves to be on library and media center shelves across the country. Educating about AIDS without preaching, Winick has written and illustrated a masterful work of literature. Although some people have criticized Winick for being an "opportunist" and a "publicity hound," I see nothing of the sort. I believe Pedro and Me is a heartfelt tribute to a friend who changed Winick's life forever. This beautiful book touches the heart. I have recommended it to my husband and to my teenage sons; as a school library media specialist, I will recommend it to my young adult students.

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funny-sad-moving

i have been a fan of the real world show ever sense the first one but it
wasn't until the real world:san francisco show that i became a true fan.
when i first saw pedro i thought there is a interesting person, it wasn't
until i saw the show that i saw just how interesting he was. i heard of hiv/aids and i read about it but i never understood what it was until pedro came along. i use to believe what every one else believed that hiv/aids was catchable, that you could get it just by touching someone but
then pedro came along and taught me and the world that it's not true.
pedro became not just a person i saw on the tv but a friend, a brother,
i felt like he was apart of my family and i still do. i am so glad judd
wrote this book, now every one who didn't watch the real world san francisco show will know what a great and loving person pedro was. i wish
i got to meet him because there is so many things i want to say to him like thank you, thank you pedro for teaching me that i shouldn't be afraid
of the person who has hiv/aids i should be loving and kinder to the person
who has this disease because that person could be a friend of mine or one
of my brothers or sisters or it could be me.

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Pedro

What I enjoyed about writer/cartoonist Judd Winick's Pedro and Me is reality style of this graphic novel. Winick book talks frankly about AIDS without beating the reader over the head with a PSA type message. He explores his friendship with his Real World co-star Pedro...and his death and aftermath

In a graphic novel format, it will capture younger readers who read them. It takes a risk and it works in this format. Winnick's art and words are a one-two punch that makes the reader want to read more and more.

It is a story that should be read in a format that allows all ages to enjoy it

Bennet Pomerantz AUDIOWORLD

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A truly touching portrait...

Judd Winick's "Pedro and Me" does what the most highly regarded graphic novels do-it captures a particular moment in time and depicts the human condition like the best in literature and film do, much like art spiegelman's acclaimed "Maus," another highly regarded story told in sequential art.
Through Winick's telling of the friendship between he and Pedro Zamora, we are able to see beyond what was depicted on camera during the season of MTV's "The Real World" where they met and became friends. Winick focuses minimal time on showing what we saw during the show's run and includes depictions of some of the other housemates, but briefly. This is not a retelling of what happened during that "Real World" season--if you want that, then buy the DVD's. Instead, the building friendship and cameraderie between Winick and Zamora is what is offered here. The loss of Zamora is seen as all the more tragic when depicted by Winick, as you feel as though the two really had just gotten to know each other. As I remember, much of Zamora's onscreen time on that season of "The Real World" was spent on Pedro as a serious young man/AIDS educator, but here we get to see Pedro as a laughing, jovial sort full of cameraderie and quotable witticisms. The telling of his childhood as a Cuban immigrant and the loss of his mother are especially touching. Everyone should read this book. It is a beautiful work.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

"You are eighteen years old. You get up in front of a thousand people--your classmates, your friends, basically the people who make up your entire existence--and announce, 'I'm HIV positive.'"

Told entirely in sequential art, here is the story of the life-changing friendship between the author, a cartoonist from Long Island, and Pedro Zamora, an HIV-positive AIDS activist, which was filmed day by day on MTV's Real World San Francisco.

As a speaker and educator, a guest on many talk shows (including Oprah), and when his tragic death received front-page coverage in the press, Pedro taught a generation that AIDS was not a punishment for moral defects or a mere killer that reduced humans to wraiths. Rather, he showed how those afflicted with the disease could live and love nobly with intelligence, humor and great humanity. Judd Winick's compelling memoir allows each of us to experience the vitally important message Pedro brought us.

Inspiring, moving, informative, and instantly accessible, Pedro and Me could become one of the books that defines a generation.

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