Books: Book Tackles the Summer of Love's Impact on the Present

Siobhán Barry-Bratcher's new young adult novel is giving kids insight into how the Summer of Love impacted their generation and as much as her own.

Finding one's place in the world and fending off bullies are challenges confronted by every generation of teenagers. Siobhán Barry-Bratcher's new novel is giving today's younger generation valuable insight into what it was like to face those challenges during a period in history when so many of America's adult citizens believed their country was in the throes of a nervous breakdown.

"Faded jeans, Eastern religions, bare feet, Native American headbands and Frank Zappa couldn't possibly have been what two survivors of the Great Depression and World War Two envisioned for their only daughter when I arrived in 1954. Nothing in Dr. Spock's child care book could have prepared them for what was coming either," insists Brooklyn born author Siobhán Barry-Bratcher. "What happened forty years ago wasn't ultimately about a style of dress, a type of music, or a neighborhood in San Francisco. The effects of the Summer of Love weren't confined to one generation. That short season colored the way many of us have conducted our lives, the way we reared our children and the attitudes we're passing on to our grandchildren."

Golden is the story of Margherite Murphy, a thirteen-year-old who declares herself a hippie during the summer of 1967. Happy with herself for the first time in her life, she is totally unprepared for the hostile reactions of the people around her who are threatened by her new identity. How do you take an ostracized kid, unsympathetic teachers, frustrated parents, race riots, a police riot, a war, ethnic stereotypes, a couple of assassinations, a vile talk show host, a landmark Supreme Court decision, and a cultural revolution and make them add up to a happy ending? Golden manages to do just that. Along with an interview with the author and a list of 1960s-related internet resources, the book includes a section titled, "A Day In The Sixties", in which the 53-year-old author gives kids of the new millennium some first-hand insight into what everyday life was like during a time "when the world was simpler, if not as user friendly".

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