Positively

Positively

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3.95 of 5 stars 3.95  ·  rating details  ·  365 ratings  ·  85 reviews
Since the day Emerson Pressman and her mother were diagnosed as HIV positive, nothing has been the same. When her mother dies of AIDS, Emmy has to go live with the father and stepmother she barely knows, and she feels more alone than ever. Now she has to take pills by herself, and there is no one left who understands what it's like to be afraid every time she has a cold. B...more
Hardcover, 224 pages
Published September 15th 2009 by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers (first published September 3rd 2009)
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Hallie Bretsch
I am reading the book Positively. The author is Courtney Sheinmal. Since this is a good book so far I would like to read other books by this author.
My favorite character in this book is Emmy. Emmy is a 13 year old girl that is HIV positive. Her mom just died of aids. Emmy is my favorite character because she is being very strong since her mom just died. Since her mom died she has to go live with her dad and his wife she is not very happy about that.
There are 2 reasons why I think the title fits...more
Regan Lundy
Feb 19, 2013 Regan Lundy rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Anyone
Before reading this book I didn't really know much about AIDs because I've never had to deal with them. Emmy's HIV is only a nuisance until her mother gets sick and ends up passing away. Having to deal with this is a hard task to deal with at such a young age when you and your mother is all there has ever really been in your life. Dealing with her mother passing away and having to move in with her dad that she hasn't ever really got along with builds up a lot of stress in Emmy's life and she beg...more
Kaylee Lanier
Positively, a heart-wrenching and inspiring story by Courtney Sheinmel, depicts the life of a teenage girl who is HIV-positive. Emerson Watson must learn to cope with the loss of her best friend, her mother, and her life altering disease- AIDS. Emmy battles a journey of dealing with pain, anxiety, hatred, and misunderstanding. She often questions her life and wonders “Why me?”. Written like a diary, the story makes you feel as if you are alongside Emmy as she deals with her emotional year. Whet...more
Ann
Particularly tweeny, girls in grades 4 - 7

Seventh grader Emmy is still reeling from the death of her mother, who had AIDS. Now she has to leave the home she's known forever and go live across town with her dad and his pregnant wife Meg. Emmy feels the loss of her mom especially acutely because of their shared disease: Emmy is also HIV positive.

The months after her mom's death are particularly trying, in spite of the support of friends and family. Her best friend Nicole's attempts at empathy are...more
Bunker
HIV defines seventh-grader Emerson Price’s life. She cannot escape thoughts of its impending sentence, making the joys of growing up and developing first crushes painful and hopes for the future seem destined to be dashed. With the loss of her mother, who contracted HIV unknowingly and infected Emmy in utero, the feelings of abandonment and loneliness cause her to detach herself from the physical world and those who inhabit it, including her best friend Nicole, and her father, who divorced her m...more
Sandra Stiles
This book starts out sad. Emerson Price has just lost her mother to AIDs. She herself is HIV – positive. She knows she could die. She has to go live with her dad and pregnant stepmom. She is tired of being treated differently. Kids at school have always done that. Her best friend Nicole can never understand what her life is like. She can’t understand that Emmy has to eat properly to take all of the medicines she has to take three times a day. She is alone in this now that her mother is gone. Wha...more
Michelle_oneil
The universal theme of feeling like an outsider is amplified for the main character in this book. Teenager Emmy is HIV positive and her mom just died from AIDS. Author Courtney Sheinmel tackles the issue of mother loss, and what it is like to be carrying a virus in your body that causes you to feel like you might be next. She gets inside the main character Emmy, exploring the very real issues kids with HIV face, from "will anyone ever want to kiss me?" to "will I even be able to grow up?"

When I...more
Reading Vacation's Mom
REVIEW
Not all teen girl stories are happy ones, but if you look close enough, there may be something “positive” in every story. Emmy’s story is exactly that. While it is very sad that Emmy is so sick, she eventually finds that there are things she can be positive about. She realizes that she still has many positive things to live for – her friends, her family, and the future.
I did not realize how serious HIV can be on a daily basis for those infected with it. Their lives are not easy. When Emmy’...more
Bronwyn Parhad
Definitely for junior high teens. I found the main character, Emerson Price, to be spot on with her feelings. Feelings about her mother's death from AIDS, her father's abandonment and subsequent divorce of her mother, his remarriage, and her stepmother's pregnancy. Emmie is frightened, angry, desperate, mean,uncommunicative, and generally unable to articulate what hurts her so much. She pushes her father away, her best friend away, and refuses to accept her stepmother's efforts to help. It's not...more
Rachel
Emmy is a girl. She lives with her mom. They both are HIV positive. When Emmy's mom gets AIDs and dies, Emmy goes to live with her dad and his pregnant OCD wife Meg. Emmy has always wanted to be normal. To not have a life regulated by taking pills so she doesn't get AIDS too. A life, she thinks, isn't worth living without her mom. Until her dad sends her to Camp Positive, a summer camp for girls who are HIV positive. It's a lot like a regular summer camp, but with girls like Emmy, girls who unde...more
Mark
Emmy Price cannot remember a time when her life was "normal," when HIV and AIDS were not part of her everyday vocabulary. Emmy contracted the HIV virus from her mother, who contracted it herself before meeting Emmy's father. Her parents divorced, Emmy grew up with her mother, but the book opens with her mother passing away from AIDS, when Emmy is 13. Emmy moves in with her father and stepmother, who are now expecting their own baby, and she feels completely alone. When Emmy is sent to Camp Posit...more
Kalliste
I randomly picked this up while at the library. I wasn't even sure I would read it but am glad that I did.

Positively is about emmy who has been HIV positive for as long as she can remember. It was passed on from her Mum when she was pregnant. Emmy feels alone in the world but knows that her Mum will be there to support her and understands what she is going through. Unti, that is, her Mum dies when Emmy is 13.

Emmy has to deal with the changes in life this brings and living with her Dad and step M...more
Dsegal
Positively by Courtney Sheinmel is about a girl and mother who were diagnosed as HIV positive. In one of the first chapters,Emmy's mother died from HIV. So, now Emmy doesn't have anyone to cope with or too help her through it. Her mom and dad were divorced so now she doesn't have a close relationship with anyone and is getting sicker as time goes by. Her father takes her too a HIV Camp with other kids that are just like her. Then, Emmy learns that she's not a lone, and that people are in the sam...more
Kris
Courtney Sheinmel has written a story that is both heartbreaking and hopeful. In Positively, 7th grader, Emmy just lost her mother to the same disease that may kill her one day. She is HIV Positive. The story begins where Emmy’s mother has just passed. Not only has she lost her mother, but she has to leave her home and move in with her father and step-mother. Emmy is angry and profoundly sad. She acts out, scaring her very pregnant step-mother. They send Emmy to Camp Positive, a camp for childre...more
Samantha
I can safely say that this is probably the most moving books I have ever read. I felt I was on the verge of tears nearly the whole way through, not because it was heartbreaking all the time (though there are moments) but because Courtney's writing makes you FEEL how Emmy is feeling.

I loved that on the surface Positively seems like a story about AIDS but really it's SO much more than that. It's a story of bravery, courage, love and loss. Not only is Emmy living with AIDS - with all the stigma tha...more
Claire
Emmy is central in this book. She is a girl who lives with HIV- this is something that I knew had to be happening, but did not slow down to think about it.
Emmy is a middle school girl who lives with HIV and all the baggage that goes with that- the death of family members, round the clock toxic medications, and fear that she will never live a full life.

She has friends and a loving family but still has no one in her life who 'really knows' what she is enduring. This book is a snippet of her life...more
Hannah
I´d heard basically nothing about this book, but since it cost only 4€ at The Book Depository I decided to just buy it, without knowing all that much about it. When It arrived and I read what it said on the back of the book, I was surprised to read it´s for ages 9 to 14. I read it anyways, and the fact that it´s MG, not YA like I´d thought, didn´t bother me much. Yeah, there are some explanations about what HIV and AIDS are, which I wouldn´t have needed, and Emmy makes some immature decisions, b...more
Emily Kurland
This book was about a girl named Emerson who has to face a problem that no one can even imagine happening, having her mother die. If that isn’t bad enough she has to move in with her dad and step mom who she absolutely hates. When her dad says that she could stay with them forever he sends her off to a camp with people who are just like her. They all have AIDS and they all have problems dealing with their lives so the camp helps them be positive about life. However sending her to this camp could...more
Lora
"Positively" written by Courtney Sheinmel was a very emotional story about a girl and her mother who are diagnosed with HIV positive, better known as AIDS.This book showed me that being healthy and happy is many kids' dreams and sometimes I take it for granted. This story is about a girl named Emerson Pressman, Emmy for short, whose mother died because of the disease and was sent to a camp by her father and stepmother. The camp's name was Camp Positive, where all kids with HIV positive went. The...more
Kristi
The first few pages of this book drew me in with the beautiful writing and the emotions of Emma. It is such a wonderful idea to write about a teenager growing up with AIDS. Obviously the author is an advocate for children like the one in this book. So, I really wanted to love it but, alas, I could only like it.

I think what did it for me was the seemingly randomness of some things. I mean, I get it, she's going through a tough time and then there was camp and all that, but the last third of the...more
Tina
Emerson Price: Age 13. She has HIV. Mother has just died of AIDS. She is the only one left with this horrible diesease.
After her mother's death, Emmy goes to live with her father and stepmother. They do everything to make her feel welcome, but she is so deep in her grief not even her friends at school can help. Her father makes a decision to send her to Camp Positive - a camp for children who are living with this disease. Emmy realizes at camp that she is not alone in her battle and makes severa...more
Megan
I rated this book 5 stars because it really describes on how Emmy's life is after her mom died from AIDS. it is an inspiring true story about a mother and her 13 year old daughter, Emmy. emmy ended up being HIV-positive when her mother was pregant with her and didnt figure it out until Emmy was about 4 years old. After Emmys mom died, Emmy had a very hard time coping with it. she would always worry about what her mom would think about what she was doing. but soon Emmy realized that things may no...more
Sandy
Highly-emotional story of a 13-year-old dealing with HIV and mourning her mother's death to the same illness. Made me cry just a little. Emmy's slew of feelings as she grieves and tries to make sense of her own life is very tangible.

I wonder if the ending was just a little too perfect - Emmy's relationship with her dad and stepmother changed from strained to perfectly amiable and cooperative seemingly overnight, with no stops in the middle. I go back and forth as to whether it was too much, but...more
Amy Brown
Emerson is HIV-positive. When her mother dies from the disease, she has to live with her father (who is not HIV-positive) and his pregnant wife. Emerson is lonely and angry that her mother has died, that she has to live with a father who left the family years ago, and that she is HIV-positive and different from everyone in her school. Her father and stepmother don't know what to do with her anger and end up sending her to a summer camp called Positive for girls with HIV. This would be good for 6...more
Rebecca
Get ready to cry from page one of this problem novel, with an HIV positive girl losing her mother to AIDS. I had picked this up thinking it was a camp story, but the camp part of it (though it fulfilled its camply duty of effecting positive change in Emmy) only takes up about a third of the book. The rest is a family story about grief and coming to terms with death and immutable medical conditions. Well-written, if you like that sort of thing. I'd rather laugh or solve a mystery or ride a dragon...more
Ciara Webster
This book was a great book! It had a great meaning to it. This book relates to my life in a "girl" way. I think every girl can realate to at least one of the emotions in this book. I would recommend this book to people who like books with a meaning behind it. I think the book appeals more towards girls than boys, but it is a great book for anyone who enjoys books with a unique story to it. I would definitly recommend this book to my friends because it's very meaningful and touches the heart. Thi...more
Natalie Lee
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Teacher.
Positively by Courtney Sheinmel is a beautiful and thought provoking novel about a teen girl that is HIV positive. When we meet Emmy, she is 13 and her mother has just passed away from complications due to the AIDS virus. She is scared and lonely and everything in her life has changed in this moment. She will have to go live with her father and step-mother who is expecting a child soon. The reality of living with HIV is tough for Emmy who can’t seem to fit in anywhere anymore. Her friends at sch...more
Marianne -유진이 ☆-
Emerson "Emmy" Price is 13, HIV-positive and has recently lost her mother to AIDS. After her mother's death, Emmy finds herself forced to live with her dad -who divorced Emmy's mom when she was eight- and his new pregnant wife, Meg.
She misses her mom more than anything and while people around her accept her HIV-positive status, it doesn't mean they understand it. Meg tries to make Emmy feel comfortable in her new house, but Emmy doesn't want a mother substitute, and whenever she's nice to Meg,...more
Chrissy
Emmy Price is a thirteen year old girl who feels different from other kids around her for one very big reason -- she is HIV positive. While the other kids go about their regular school day, Emmy makes special trips to the nurse's office to take an assortment of very important pills on a strict schedule. Emmy remembers that her mother would always kiss one of the pills before putting it into her daughter's hand, saying that she loved the medicine that was helping to keep her baby girl alive.

Unfor...more
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Positively (Paperback)
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Courtney Sheinmel is the author of MY SO-CALLED FAMILY and POSITIVELY. She lives in New York City.
More about Courtney Sheinmel...
My So-Called Family  Sincerely, Sophie; Sincerely, Katie Stella Batts Needs a New Name All the Things You Are Stella Batts Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

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