A wonderful story about when kids used there i-Maginations instead of their i-Pads.
If you can remember the days before computers and video games, you will recall that your best times were spent outdoors with other kids. The ability to create adventure shaped the hopes and dreams of the Baby Boomer generation.
The Streets of our Youth follows the hilarious and sometimes embarrassing adventures of Richey Storm and the Draden Tribe, a club of 10- to 14-year-old boys caught up in the tumultuous and changing days of 1960s. The novel begins on November 22, 1963, the day President Kennedy was shot. The boys are facing a weekend without television. How will they keep busy?
Join Richey and the Tribe as they tackle the challenges of boredom, the joys of the holidays, the pain of dealing with girls, and attempting death-defying antics that only unbridled youth would try. The children of the ‘60s lived life to the fullest, armed only with their imagination.
Excerpt
***this passage occurs the Satuday morning after the assasination of John F. Kennedy. No television aside from coverage
Saturday morning started out with me doing a face cartwheel and proceeded from there.
I awoke, letting out a Tarzan yodel and swung on my vine to the bathroom -switch vines- the kitchen -switch vines- and finally, to the TV! Well, that was the plan anyway. What actually happened was far less graceful. With no memory of Fridays changing of the guard moment in history, I jumped out of bed, got my foot stuck in the sheets and proceeded to catapult, head over heels, grazing my somewhat startled face across the floor and miraculously landing on my feet! Score cards came up. 9- 9- 8- 10- 7-10! The judges were actually pretty fair, considering I didn't stick the landing. Bracing myself to ensure I wasn't going to attempt anymore unplanned tryouts for the Olympics, I made the route as planned (sans vines) ending in front of the magic box ready to see “Underdog” take on whatever hideous villain might becoming his way or “Mighty Mouse” coming to save the day. Then, there, on my TV, was yet another face shaking his head no, which I certainly agreed with, talking about yesterday’s tragedy. Have you ever been really disappointed when you were expecting something awesome but instead, got socks? Looking like a puppy tilting its head in curiosity, I prayed the next channel would not yield yet another face. Cautiously, I switched to channel 11. Oh please let “Huckleberry Hound” grace my face with his southern twang. Oh please let “Smedly,” the mutt, do anything for his favorite treat. Nope, nada, forget it, not this time pal. Instead, what I received for my not inconsiderable effort was, yep you guessed it, same crap time, same crap channel. ‘Nooooooooooooooooooooo,” I screamed (in my head!) There was one more chance for television salvation. Maybe channel 2 had come to their senses, knowing that a reckoning was coming. The youth of Houston were about to march on them and not one bit happy either! Switching to channel 2, where “Casper” and “Baby Huey” were on deck, I quickly found out that on deck was exactly where they were going to stay. I hoped they were going to enjoy whatever being on deck gave them because they were not going to get to entertain me. I thought about going back to bed and trying it again but the tiny adult growing inside me let me know that this time, my face might not be so lucky. Denied and immeasurably bummed, I decided to venture outside.
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Reviews for "The Streets of Our Youth"
Reviewed by Angie Baugher
7/30/2012
Would do a 3.5 if the rating system did halves.
This semi-autobiograhpical novel is set in 1960's Texas and details the adventures of a young man, from roughly age 11 to 14 years, as he and his "tribe" of neighborhood friends do what kids did back before all the modern distractions existent today.
I think the writer has a great storytelling voice, but it doesn't seem to work that well in print. The writing is clearly amateur, rife with over-use of punctuation, the caps lock key, and grammatical errors that made me cringe. The smiley faces at the end of far too many sentences could have been left out, to the betterment of the writing. Having read well over a thousand books, these issues made reading the book a bit difficult for me.
THAT BEING SAID, I found myself chuckling out loud at various parts throughout the book, ignoring the errors, and looking forward to getting back to the story each time I picked it up. Some of the feeling of youthful nostalgia came through in the writing, bringing back memories of my own fun times and creative games with childhood friends, running around and thinking up new ways to keep my mind occupied on hot summer days when TV wasn't even an option, having only a few special holidays to look forward to each year, and not being afraid of getting dirty and spending the day at the pool without parents. I imagine a number of adult readers will also find a connection of this sort with the story. This book is well worth reading just for that.
Reviewed by Phoebe Stelle
6/25/2012
An engaging and delightful coming of age tale. Nostalgic for those from the era and intriguing for all generations. With quirky laugh out loud moments, it’s a refreshingly light adventure of youth to take you back to a more simple time. A must read!
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