his interesting story teaching much about recent cultural history in America would really be a treasure as a gift for any thinking teenager. Layla's poignant predicament, losing her mother to death and then searching for and finding her alive father who is an old anarchist fugitive, will hold the emotional interest of young people, I think, especially girls.
The book also provides a great service in putting the 60's culture out there so it is not forgotten. I was a part of that culture and we were very serious, many of our generation died in the Vietnam War, and we had plenty to be angry about. Racism and racial poverty was still at barbaric levels, sexism and hatred of gay people was enough to cause rioting in the streets--and that's exactly what we had.
We ALMOST had organized insurrection and revolution back then, but thank God we didn't. We had a cultural revolution, where society changed enough to ward off the worst. I am glad. At 60, I have no use for violence--but at 21, I am sorry to say I did because I was young, angry, and had nothing to lose. It did not go that far for me--but it could have happened, and it came too close. People physically suffered and died at that time. It was very real.
To me, the one thing that stands out most from that time, rarely written about, is the incredible sense of brotherhood that was pervasive everywhere in this hippie/freedom/culture, the way you could trust someone with long hair (you really could!): the way it created a raised moral code for a whole generation of people based on wonderful, good and right things that bonded us in a way I have never seen in this country since. It was a wonderful thing to be part of that. It was a wonderful and terrible time, with war, death, and riots in the streets on the TV news every night, driving us to loyalty and risks and caring and bonding. It drove us to re-write culture. And we did.
I have studied history since those days. Now I know that those things we experienced were indeed the beginnings of what could have been a real civil war. It could have escalated that far. I am greatly relieved it didn't, and that much good change came out of it. Today I see a black president of the USA--I would never have believed it! I see a black middle class, and how glad I am to see that! I see gay marriage fighting to get accepted, and it is going to win that fight.
Our country needed to change, and it did change and is still changing as much as it can, just enough to keep us from the horror of civil war. I am sure all wise people are glad of that, as I am.
Layla's venture was personal, her relationship to her dad and his relationship to his belief system, all personal and all in retrospect. The passion and the necessity of the whole thing, and the pathos of a country on the brink of civil war--that does not come out in this book because the story is in retrospect, told from and for young people who grew up afterward. Layla is 22 and she sees a black president on the TV screen. She cannot understand what it took to put that man in the White House. Of course, she cannot. And it is so easy to forget. Sometimes I forget myself. I am glad for this book that made me remember.
Well done, Celine! Thank you for preserving history and perspective for us. We must not forget who we are.
The book also provides a great service in putting the 60's culture out there so it is not forgotten. I was a part of that culture and we were very serious, many of our generation died in the Vietnam War, and we had plenty to be angry about. Racism and racial poverty was still at barbaric levels, sexism and hatred of gay people was enough to cause rioting in the streets--and that's exactly what we had.
We ALMOST had organized insurrection and revolution back then, but thank God we didn't. We had a cultural revolution, where society changed enough to ward off the worst. I am glad. At 60, I have no use for violence--but at 21, I am sorry to say I did because I was young, angry, and had nothing to lose. It did not go that far for me--but it could have happened, and it came too close. People physically suffered and died at that time. It was very real.
To me, the one thing that stands out most from that time, rarely written about, is the incredible sense of brotherhood that was pervasive everywhere in this hippie/freedom/culture, the way you could trust someone with long hair (you really could!): the way it created a raised moral code for a whole generation of people based on wonderful, good and right things that bonded us in a way I have never seen in this country since. It was a wonderful thing to be part of that. It was a wonderful and terrible time, with war, death, and riots in the streets on the TV news every night, driving us to loyalty and risks and caring and bonding. It drove us to re-write culture. And we did.
I have studied history since those days. Now I know that those things we experienced were indeed the beginnings of what could have been a real civil war. It could have escalated that far. I am greatly relieved it didn't, and that much good change came out of it. Today I see a black president of the USA--I would never have believed it! I see a black middle class, and how glad I am to see that! I see gay marriage fighting to get accepted, and it is going to win that fight.
Our country needed to change, and it did change and is still changing as much as it can, just enough to keep us from the horror of civil war. I am sure all wise people are glad of that, as I am.
Layla's venture was personal, her relationship to her dad and his relationship to his belief system, all personal and all in retrospect. The passion and the necessity of the whole thing, and the pathos of a country on the brink of civil war--that does not come out in this book because the story is in retrospect, told from and for young people who grew up afterward. Layla is 22 and she sees a black president on the TV screen. She cannot understand what it took to put that man in the White House. Of course, she cannot. And it is so easy to forget. Sometimes I forget myself. I am glad for this book that made me remember.
Well done, Celine! Thank you for preserving history and perspective for us. We must not forget who we are.