STOKED -1969

  Yes, my wonderful and talented editor, Nancy Butts, has given me the thumbs up! After a long year of many grueling rewrites, I have finally finished my second YA novel, Stoked - 1969, and have sent it off to traditional publishing houses for their consideration. Two years ago, while teaching my grandson how to read, he suggested I write a story about our year-long journey together.  The result of his request is my story about Jake Edwards. The year is 1969 and thirteen-year-old Jake is more worried about the war going on in his family than he is about the one in Vietnam. His parents and his Grandma Rose haven’t spoken since his older brother, Aaron, has enlisted in the Army. And furious with his principal and teachers for not teaching Jake to read, his mother has just yanked him out of school – without telling him first. As the summer ends, Jake desperately wants Aaron to come home from the war, safe and in one piece. Just as desperately, Jake wants to be like everyone else – to be able to read. Jake is forced to leave everything he knows to go and live with his wacko, hippie grandma. What were his parents thinking when they agreed to let Rose take over his education? Jake is sentenced to live among rebels – hippies who believe that the war is wrong. How will he ever fit into a group of tight-knit peaceniks? He needs a plan – relax and go with the flow, not an easy thing for a kid with dyslexia. Jake wonders if he’ll ever learn to read. His grandma thinks so, but he has his doubts. And then there’s Oliver, the long-haired creep who likes Hetty, the most beautiful girl Jake’s ever met. Anything this girl says sounds like music to his ears. But the evening news brings Jake right back down to planet Earth, right back to the horrors of the Vietnam War. He finds himself at a fork in the road. Jake needs to make a decision – to participate in the non-violent civil disobedience rallies his Grandma Rose is organizing or not. He decides to participate, realizing that protesting doesn’t mean he’s a traitor to his country. But the Vietnam Moratorium in Boston turns into a trap as Jake and his grandmother and the students in Rose’s class are corralled in Harvard Square and tear gassed by the National Guardsmen. This is a turning point for Jake. Weren’t the police and National Guardsmen supposed to serve and protect? Nothing made any sense anymore. Then when the horrific My Lai massacre is exposed in the press, Jake loses even more faith in the government and in the president. He has a falling-out with Hetty when she says that all American soldiers have gone berserk. Jake insists that his brother would never do anything like the soldiers in Charley Company had done – or would he? To make matters worse, Jake and Oliver are confronted by teenage bullies from the town of Peaceable who accuse them of being anti-American Communists. This is a turning point in their friendship. When he finally gets back to Rose’s cabin, he learns that Aaron is missing-in-action. Jake is now clear that he wants the war to end. He wants his brother to come home. “It sure was hard being a kid who stood up for what he believed in.” As the school year draws to an end, Jake realizes he had the intelligence to read all along; he just needed to be taught the right way. His hard work, perseverance, and patience took care of the rest. Rose helps him discover that he is fine the way he is. Different is good. “I wasn’t disabled or broke; I didn’t need to be fixed. I was a writer now, the author of my own life. What I’d say, and how I’d be, was solely and completely, up to me.” Jake's story is just waiting for the right publisher to represent it. I look forward to the publication of Stoked - 1969, and to hearing from all my fans.