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Summary
Summary
From two-time National Book Award finalist Deborah Wiles, the remarkable story of two cousins who must take a road trip across American in 1969 in order to let a teen know he's been drafted to fight in Vietnam. Full of photos, music, and figures of the time, this is the masterful story of what it's like to be young and American in troubled times.It's 1969.Molly is a girl who's not sure she can feel anything anymore, because life sometimes hurts way too much. Her brother Barry ran away after having a fight with their father over the war in Vietnam. Now Barry's been drafted into that war - and Molly's mother tells her she has to travel across the country in an old schoolbus to find Barry and bring him home.Norman is Molly's slightly older cousin, who drives the old schoolbus. He's a drummer who wants to find his own music out in the world - because then he might not be the "normal Norman" that he fears he's become. He's not sure about this trip across the country . . . but his own mother makes it clear he doesn't have a choice.Molly and Norman get on the bus - and end up seeing a lot more of America that they'd ever imagined. From protests and parades to roaring races and rock n' roll, the cousins make their way to Barry in San Francisco, not really knowing what they'll find when they get there.As she did in her other epic novels Countdown and Revolution, two-time National Book Award finalist Deborah Wiles takes the pulse of an era . . . and finds the multitude of heartbeats that lie beneath it.
Author Notes
Deborah Wiles is the author of the picture book Freedom Summer and the novels: Love, Ruby Lavender ; The Aurora County All-Stars ; Each Little Bird That Sings , a National Book Award finalist; and A Long Line of Cakes . She is also the author of the documentary novels Countdown ; Revolution , a National Book Award Finalist; and Anthem . She has vivid memories of ducking and covering under her school desk during air raid drills at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. She also sang in the Glee Club, was a champion speller, and hated Field Day. Deborah lives in Atlanta, Georgia. You can visit her on the web at deborahwiles.com.
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 5--8--This third volume of Wiles's "Sixties Trilogy" evokes the conflicts, chaos, and deep emotions occurring in 1969 during the United States' controversial involvement in the Vietnam War. A fictional story follows Molly, 14, and Norman, 17, two cousins driving across the country in a school bus from Charleston, SC, to San Francisco to bring back Molly's brother Barry, who ran away to escape the draft. A wide-ranging collection of primary source documents--photographs, quotes, newspaper articles--help readers understand the historical context with its complex voices. The result is a "documentary novel" of great impact. Over time, Molly and Norman grow as they encounter people with different experiences and viewpoints--an army deserter, an interracial couple, a gay couple who are war veterans--and integrate these experiences into their worldview. They see black people and white people eating together, come across people living in a commune, and meet a variety of people from the music world. Molly learns to think more deeply about racial relations. Norman develops greater self-confidence and the ability to judge character. Their bond deepens as they mature. Music pervades the narrative, mirroring how it (according to the author's note) "saturated, permeated, buoyed, and informed Everything." VERDICT This is a book that takes root in readers' mind and stays there. A gripping read with a satisfying conclusion.--Myra Zarnowski, City University of New York
Publisher's Weekly Review
In this conclusion to Wiles's Sixties Trilogy, which riffs on the music of the era, two cousins, Molly and Norman, head from Charleston to San Francisco in June 1969. They're trying to locate Molly's missing brother, Barry, who left after a fight with their father over U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War and has now been summoned by letter to report for his pre-draft physical. As in her first two volumes, Countdown and Revolution, Wiles's prodigious research informs the narrative, and each of five sections is introduced with photomontages, excerpts from news stories and speeches, and song lyrics. The jam-packed novel is long but adventurous as Norman insists on stopping frequently to feed his burgeoning interest in rock 'n' roll and jazz; along the way, the cousins meet the likes of the Allman Brothers and Elvis and deliver some cymbals to Capitol Records in Los Angeles. If readers can get past the idea that the cousins' mothers support Molly, 14, and Norman, 17, driving a rickety school bus cross-country to bring Barry home, they'll have one hell of a nostalgia-driven road trip in store. Ages 9--12. (Oct.)
Horn Book Review
Wiless weighty, innovative Sixties Trilogy concludes in the summer of 1969 as fourteen-year-old Molly and her seventeen-year-old cousin Norman journey from South Carolina to San Francisco in an old school bus in search of Mollys brother Barry, who left home after an argument with their father over the Vietnam War. What they experience challenges their comfortable white upbringing in Charleston. They eat in integrated restaurants for the first time; they meet Vietnam veterans who support the war and vets shattered by the war. They give a ride to Ray, a young Black man who tells them about being shot while helping people register to vote; they learn to question the official version of American history presented in their An Adventurers Guide to Travel Across America. Wiles continues the documentary-novel format employed in Countdown (rev. 5/10) and Revolution (rev. 7/14). Scrapbook sections of photographs induce a powerful sense of immediacy; these are interspersed with the main text, written in the alternating first-person voices of Molly and Norman, with third-person narratives blended in. Each chapter is the title of a seminal 1960s song, creating a playlist for the music that guides their journey. The extensive back matter includes a useful further reading section. dean schneider September/October 2019 p.105(c) Copyright 2019. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Two teenagers take a road tripsearching for a fugitive family member and findingAmerica.It's June 1969. Hints that her estranged but beloved big brother, Barry, has fetched up in San Francisco prompt 14-year-old Molly to enlist their fledgling-drummer cousin, Norman, 17, as driver and (with the collusion of their newly liberated moms) head west from Charleston in an old school bus. Quickly turning into anything but a straight run, the journey plunges the nave but resilient travelers into a succession of youth-culture hot spots from Atlanta's funky Strip to a commune in New Mexico, with stops at renowned recording studios and live-music venues. Wiles opens and closes this musically and culturally immersive road trip with extensive montages of period news photos, quotes, headlines, and lyrics, scatters smaller documentary sheaves throughout, and enriches the song titles at each chapter head with production notes. The glittering supporting cast includes famed session musician Hal Blaine, Duane Allman, Elvis, and Wavy Gravy. While leaving the era's more-conservative, racist majority visible but at a remove from her white protagonists, the author introduces them to an interracial couple with a baby and a same-sex couple of Vietnam vets. In the end, Barry's fate takes on minor significance next to the profound changes the trip has wrought on their hearts and minds.No sex or drugsbut plenty of live, heady rock-'n'-roll. (author's note, timeline, several bibliographies) (Historical fiction. 11-13) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
It's July 2, 1969, a year since 14-year-old Molly's beloved older brother Barry following an altercation with his father over the Vietnam War left their South Carolina home without a word. Now an official draft notice has arrived for him, and Molly is sent with her 17-year-old cousin, Norman, to find Barry and bring him home. So off the two go in Norman's old school bus on a quixotic quest to locate the missing Barry. Along the way, they have many adventures, a number involving music, about which Wiles writes beautifully and knowledgeably, for Norman is a drummer with hopes of starting a band. To his delight, they visit recording studios and meet the likes of Duane Allman and (gasp!) Elvis Presley. They pick up a stray dog and their share of human strays as well, including a young ex-soldier who appears to be suffering from PTSD. Their travels vividly paint a portrait of a country divided by war and knit together by music. Wiles, in this third volume of her Sixties Trilogy (Countdown, 2010; Revolution, 2014), intersperses the narrative with portfolios of contextual period photos, headlines, quotations, and more. The result is a brilliant exercise in verisimilitude. It's all complicated, of course, but the novel is wonderfully true to the reality and spirit of the time.--Michael Cart Copyright 2010 Booklist
