Much of the book is based on his personal experience as he explains in the author’s note. “Strasser convincingly depicts the experience of the war and the opposition to it, the hippie culture of Woodstock, and the reality of using drugs. The best part of the book, however, is the one that transcends eras: Lucas’ introspection as he contemplates his place in the world.” – Booklist Online “The picture painted of the Woodstock music festival shows the dark side of peace and love, and the prevalence of drugs is on almost every page, though at times the use of psychedelics seems excessive. The seedy glamor of the counterculture is on display, but so is the looming question, ‘What if that were me?’” – Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books “Strasser’s protagonist is a riveting character-funny, yet also pitiful foolish, yet justifiably frightened self destructive, yet at his core self aware. “A sweetly bittersweet, surprising, even melancholy bildungsroman set against a world in flux. When tuning in, turning on, and dropping out is no longer enough, what else is there? less … As the pressures grow, it’s not long before Lucas finds himself knocked so far down, it’s starting to look like up to him. If that isn’t heavy enough, there’s also the free-loving (and undeniably alluring) Tinsley, who seems determined to test Lucas’s resolve to stay faithful to Robin a frighteningly bad trip at a Led Zeppelin concert a run-in with an angry motorcycle gang parents who appear headed for a divorce and a friend on the front lines in ’Nam who’s in mortal danger of not making it back. But life veers dramatically off track when he suddenly finds himself in danger of being drafted and sent to fight in Vietnam.

With his girlfriend, Robin, away in Canada, eighteen-year-old Lucas Baker’s only plans for the summer are to mellow out with his friends, smoke weed, drop a tab or two, and head out in his microbus for a three-day happening called the Woodstock Music and Art Fair. Drawing from his teenage years, author Todd Strasser revisits a tumultuous era and takes readers on a psychedelically tinged trip of a lifetime.

The beast of cretacea by todd strasser