The Counterculture : Giving Peace a Chance in Turbulent Times.

The Counterculture/ ‘Hippie’/’Yippie’ subculture and there affect on the 1960s and 70s.  Particular emphasis was placed on the antiwar/peace movement during the Vietnam Conflict.

~Peter Breault

• Item 1: Young Adult – Fiction – (ISBN – 13: 978-0-06-020710-6)

Brooks, Bruce. (1986). Midnight hour encores. New York, NY: Harper & Row. 263 p.

Reason/Perspective:  This is one of my older selections dating back to 1986; it was included because I just really liked the premise.  A daughter is raised by her father, when the mother runs away to live the carefree life of a hippie.  Now the child who is becoming a musical ‘genius’ and her father go on a road trip to try and meet the estranged mother.  The twist is that the mother isn’t quite the ‘hippie’ she once was.  My intention was to have at least one text that helped to explain what happened to some of the hippies who ended up just blending back into society. 

• Item 2: Young Adult – Nonfiction – (ISBN – 13: 978-1-59403-082-6)
Collier, Peter. (2006). Destructive generation: second thoughts about the sixties. (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Encounter Books. 414 p.

Reason/Perspective:  To be honest I have seen mixed reviews on this item.  However, for the purpose of differing viewpoints I wanted something about the time period that was very conservative, and portray the exact opposite viewpoints expressed by the hippie subculture.  This was the closest I could find that fit that criteria, and was still written for a young adult audience.

• Item 3: Young Adult/Adult – Nonfiction – (ISBN – 13: 978-0-275-96211-1)

Dickerson, James. (1999). North to Canada: men and women against the Vietnam War. Westport, CT: Praeger. 199 p.

Reason/Perspective:  This item differs in age ranges; the sites Alibris.com and Amazon.com portray this more as a juvenile/young adult item, whereas the vendor site titlewave.com says it is for adults.  It tells the story and the perspective of those that fled the United States and went to Canada to avoid the draft.

• Item 4: Young Adult – Fiction – (ISBN – 13: 978-0-374-46970-2)

Hobbs, Valerie. (2006). Sonny’s War. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 215 p.

Reason/Perspective:  Told through the perspective of a teen boy named Sonny, and a girl named Cory.  It supposedly deals a great deal with the Vietnam drafts, the peace movements, and the differing opinions within the setting of a small town in America.

• Item 5: Young Adult – Nonfiction – (ISBN – 13: 978-0-313-36572-0

Issitt, Micah. L. (2009).  Hippies: a guide to an American subculture. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. 164 p.

Reason/Perspective: This item may fit more in the category of a reference material for young adults.  However the latter half of this item is supposedly filled with primary resources from the time period from such prominent figures as Abbie Hoffman, Timothy Leary, Joan Baez, and Grace Slick.

• Item 6: Young Adult – Nonfiction – (ISBN – 13: 978-1-888451-78-8)

Kovic, Ron. (2005). Born on the Fourth of July. Brooklyn, New York: Akashic Books. 216 p.

Reason/Perspective: While this item was originally written in 1976 this version has a new introduction where Kovic compares the conflict in Vietnam with the one in Iraq.  In my opinion it is a classic for this particular topic.  It tells the story of a man who goes off to war positive/energetic, becomes paralyzed in combat, returns home where he loses his love of war, and he becomes one of the more instrumental figures in the antiwar movement.

• Item 7: Adult – Nonfiction – (ISBN – 13: 978-0-226-46503-6)

Kusch, Frank. (2008). Battleground Chicago: the police and the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. 206 p.

Reason/Perspective:  This is the one major item that is probably more adult than young adult.  I questioned its inclusion but its viewpoint in my opinion was too valuable for exclusion.  It is supposedly written from the viewpoint of the police who had to deal with the events of the 1968 Democratic National Convention and the riot/protests that ensued because of the involvement of the Yippies/Hippies.

• Item 8:  Young Adult – Fiction – (ISBN - 13: 978-0-618-11134-3)

Murphy, Claire Rudolf. (2002). Free Radical. Boston, MA: Clarion Books. 198 p.

Reason/Perspective:  A teenage boy living in Alaska discovers that his mother is wanted by the FBI for the killing of someone, when she took part in an anti-Vietnam protest.  I wanted a piece from telling the story from the perspective of the ‘hippie generation’s’ children.

• Item 9: Grades 5-8/YA – Fiction – (ISBN – 13: 978-1-59990-183-1)

Partidge, Elizabeth. (2011). Dogtag Summer. London, United Kingdom: Bloomsbury. 229 p.

Reason/Perspective:  A Vietnamese teenager adopted by an American family makes a discovery in 1980 when she comes across a set of dog tags and an ammunition box that belonged to her adopting father proving he had a connection with the Vietnam Conflict.  The girl Tracy also has a friend named Stargazer who is the daughter of hippies.

• Item 10: Young Adult – Nonfiction – (ISBN – 13: 978-1-57488-275-5)

Tollefson, James W. (2000). The strength not to fight: conscientious objectors of the Vietnam War – in their own words. (1st pbk. ed.). Washington D.C., Potomac Books Inc: (formerly Brassey’s inc). 248 p.

Reason/Perspective: This book includes many different true stories about the people who chose not to fight, how it affected their lives, and those around them.  It also mentions what they endured for their views, and how they remember the events approximately 30 years later.

(Very Close Runners Up: I had three items that I really wanted two include but for the reasons mentioned I had to drop them from my top ten list.)

Runner-up 1: Young Adult – Fiction – (ISBN – 13: 978-0-9551566-3-2)

D’Adamo, Francesco. (2007). My brother Johnny. Twickenham, Middlesex, England: Aurora Metro Press. 128 p.

Reason: This story sounds good, about a young man who goes to war as a flier only to realize that he bombed civilians and when he returns home to the U.S. he takes an anti war position.  However, try as I might over multiple days I could not locate a reputable review of this item.  Since I had nothing to validate my opinions it was ultimately rejected.

Runner-up 2:  Young Adult – Nonfiction – (ISBN – 13: 978-0-7377-0406-8)

Kallen, Stuart A. (Eds.). (2001). Sixties Counterculture.  Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven Press. 224 p.

Reason: This item is very similar to the book by Micah L. Issitt, Hippies: a guide to an American subculture.  In the end I rejected this item because Issitt’s book looked more engaging for young adults, though they seemed to be reviewed equally well.

Runner-up 3:  Young Adult – Fiction – (ISBN – 13: 978-0152058272)

Paulsen, Gary. (2006). The Car. Boston, MA: Graphia. 192 p.

Reason: This story looked good, but I was not completely convinced that it stated as much about my topic as I wanted.