Are You Experienced?

August 5, 2013
On the 45th anniversary of his uncle Michael’s deadly heroin overdose, Rich Barber, an overprotected 15-year-old, travels back in time to Woodstock. At the music festival, he meets Michael for the first time—and gets to know his strict father as an enthusiastic teen. Rich also runs into rock star legends (The Lovin’ Spoonful’s John Sebastian and Janis Joplin sing a private duet), inadvertently ingests psychedelic mushrooms with his father, and learns about the pressures Michael is under, including trying to protect his brother from their terrible parents. The characters are somewhat two-dimensional, but readers will enjoy seeing the 1960s through Rich’s eyes: he trips out watching people use payphones, expresses surprise at how much better Coke tastes with real sugar, and wonders what it was like for his father to grow up during Vietnam (“I had never known a single person who was in the army. Even though I had lived through the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, they hadn’t really touched my life”). These details and ideas are what make Rich’s story worth the journey. Ages 12–up.

August 15, 2013
When 15-year-old Rich Barber travels back in time from 2014 to the 1969 Woodstock festival, he encounters the '60s, including his teenage father. Rich loves playing the guitar and wishes he had been around in the '60s, like his father and uncle who played in a rock band and attended Woodstock. After his older brother died from a heroin overdose, though, Rich's father turned into a depressed, overprotective adult. Rich has spent his whole life limited by his father's rules. When he discovers his father's been hiding a guitar rock luminary Jimi Hendrix played at Woodstock, Rich defiantly strikes a chord and wakes up on the road to Woodstock with his father, his uncle and his uncle's girlfriend. A stranger from the future who knows what's going to happen, Rich conceals his identity and bonds with his father. Together, they witness Woodstock's free love, rampant drug use and incredible music. When Rich learns his father had abusive parents, he's determined to "meet Jimi Hendrix, save [his] uncle and change [his] father's future." Alternating his first-person narration between past and present, Rich proves a sensitive, insightful and humorous 21st-century guide to the hippie generation's most iconic event. This provocative, personal peek at legendary Woodstock rocks. (Fantasy. 12 & up)

COPYRIGHT(2013) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

September 1, 2013

Gr 8-10-October 2014. Rich is a guitar-playing 15-year-old whose parents, former hippies, are strict. When the teen's goth girlfriend talks him into performing at a rally for the legalization of medical marijuana, Rich lies to his father but gets caught when the man shows up at the event. After a blowup and Rich is grounded, he finds the guitar that Jimi Hendrix played at Woodstock in 1969 in his father's closet. Rich is suddenly transported back to that time and place. He lands naked in the street and gets hit by a car. The catch? The car is driven by his father's older brother, Michael, who is fated to die from a heroin overdose a couple of weeks later. His uncle's girlfriend convinces Rich to join them on their trip to a music festival: Woodstock. Rich shares the backseat with Michael's hyperactive younger brother, David, who will grow up to become Rich's dad. While the book is humorous at times, the vernacular doesn't quite resonate as realistic. In addition, the teen's antagonistic relationship with his dad feels somewhat forced. While readers may be able to suspend disbelief in regard to the Hendrix guitar, it's curious that the teen doesn't seem overly concerned about returning to his own world. The novel is well researched, but it's unlikely that teens will connect with all the references.-Ryan P. Donovan, New York Public Library

Copyright 2013 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2013
Grades 7-10 Dig it: Sick of his dad's uptight rules, 15-year-old Rich trespasses into a private room and discovers the off-white Fender Stratocaster played by Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock. What the hell? Per an attached note, Rich plays the Jimi chord and is blasted 45 years into the past, where he is struck by a van containing his 15-year-old father, David; 18-year-old uncle, Michael; and Willow, the most beautiful, sad, magical, amazing hippie love goddess in the universe. Yeah, it's a far-out trip. Soon Rich is living Woodstock firsthand, including special brownies, free love make-out sessions, mud, smoke, and the sort of music that changes lives. Aware that Uncle Michael dies of a heroin overdose after the festival, Rich sets out to save himand in doing so, save his father's future as well. Despite some didactic passages, Sonnenblick's depiction of Woodstock is genuine, infectious, and groovy (he shares a joint with Jerry Garcia!), and Rich's future knowledge wrings aching melancholy from what, in 1969, seemed like a utopia. Unique, occasionally profound, and appropriately psychedelic. Turn it up, man!(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)