A Rock and a Hard Place: One Boy's Truimphant Story

by Anthony Godby Johnson

Book Overview

A 14-year-old boy's powerful, eloquent, and heartening memoir: how he survived abusive parents, made school and the New York streets his refuge, and finally found a genuine family--only to be confronted with the ultimate challenge of AIDS. LikeThe Diary of Anne Frank, this is a young person's personal account of rising above the worst terrors of a troubled time.Line drawings.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 051759501X
• ISBN13: 9780517595015
• Release Date: April 1993
• Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY)
• Length: 213 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.3" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

The best book I ever read!!

Anthony Godby Johnson was one extraordinary youngster and his book reads like an adults. Just wonderful!! He brings to light the devestation of AIDS on not only the family but the victim itself. The boy suffered horrifying abuse, both sexual and physical, from both his parents and the people surrounding them. And yet the book is totally devoid of bitterness. This story is tragic, yet hopeful. I felt strangely sad and happy when I finished the story that I have told all my friends about it and am loaning out my copy! A copy that I will consign to my keeper shelf that is filled with only the truly extaordinary books I have read. I will tell you that few belong to this catagory.

Every teacher should read this book!

Anthony Godby Johnson has the wisdom of some one twice his age. While telling his sad life history he imparts such insight and never makes you feel bad. As a teacher I will use parts of his book with my high school students to inform and encourage.I have shared this book with many other teachers and all have come away from it with hope and promise. All have thanked me for sharing the experiences of Tony.If you only read one book read A Rock & a Hard Place!

Shocking and moving

I had to look again to verify that a fourteen year-old wrote this book. It is touching and one of the best written books I've read. Tony Johnson does not let the bad things that have happened in his life dampen his spirit, and you will be uplifted by his heartening words of triumph.

There is always room for hope . . .

is the deepest message of this beautiful and superbly written book that all should read. As a young man diagnosed with AIDS as a result of horrifying childhood abuse, Tony Godby Johnson writes about growing up, learning, and living, and tells his story with clarity, wit, tenderness, intelligence, feeling, and talent. This is not a wishy-washy "happy ending" type tale, nor is it glossed with movie-like melodrama--but it is an honest and beautiful and moving book about hope and love in spite of misery and hardship. Mr. Godby Johnson is an exemplary young man and I strongly encourage everyone to read his work. You will be not only be moved and impressed, but also inspired. -L. Jone