The Freedom Dreamers

No parents. No teachers. And only one rule: Be free. In 1968, the counterculture is in full swing. Protesting a corrupt war, rejecting the norms forced on them by society, hippies are trying to live better than the generation before them … by breaking all its rules. Jill, a young runaway longing to be a Broadway star, finds acceptance in a makeshift family of fellow outcasts and misfits living on the streets of Manhattan. And with Eric-a handsome dropout just months away from the draftable age of eighteen-she finds the thrilling possibility of first love. But her new life isn't all peace and flowers: the specter of the war is ever-present, and some of the tribe's risk-taking comes at a tragic price. Are they really changing the world? Or are they just dreaming? Alicia Brown's debut novel captures the energy of the turbulent sixties: the music, the experimentation, the fear of the draft, and the hippie culture's alluring offer of total freedom and belonging. "Freedom means choices, and choices come with grown-up consequences in this fresh, lively coming-of-age novel set in NYC during the fast and loose sixties." -Janet Nichols Lynch