Tuesday, August 18, 2009

The Woodstock Story Book by Linanne Sackett and Barry Levine


The Woodstock Story Book
By Linanne Sackett and Barry Levine
Copyright 2009
The Brunswick Institute
176 pages

My copy of The Woodstock Story Book arrived on Saturday and I plopped right down to flip through it without realizing it would be such a quick read that I'd finish it before I got back up.

Just like the title indicates, the book is a "story book" very much in the form of a children's book, with rhyming text throughout:

The crowds assembled, started to grow

Still not sure if the acts would show

Captions round out the story of Woodstock, which is told in words and photographs with fond reminiscence and levity. As the story opens, you see photos of the crowd, tickets to the three-day event, the land where the concert was to take place. People are shown trickling in while construction crews were just getting started building the stage. Young people walked, it says, as far as 15 miles to attend the concert.

I only knew bits and pieces about Woodstock because I was alive when it occurred but young enough that it didn't mean anything at all to me, till later (although I do remember huddling around the TV to watch man walk on the moon, the same year). "Woodstock" was just a word that conjured up hippies, good music and a farm in New York. In spite of minimal text, I felt like the book gave me a good feel for the event, what it was all about, the atmosphere, and the variety and quality of acts.

There's some nudity, but in spite of the "make love not war" creed of the time, there are no graphic photos of people doing anything objectionable. Instead, the photos give you an understanding of the relaxed vibe in the crowd. My son read the book and particularly loved the caption about the man who walked around naked with his pet sheep and, "Nobody told him to get the flock out."

5/5 - I just loved this book. The layout is appealing with large photos, nicely captioned. Visually, the book is uncluttered and easy on the eyes. The poetic text is kind of silly, but it's not annoying; it's really just cute and adds to the light-hearted mood of The Woodstock Story Book, bringing the relaxed atmosphere to life. There's some nudity but it's not rude or offensive in any way. Still, some may want to keep it out of the hands of the younger kids if you're worried.

I'm still reading Christianish and decided I didn't want to hold off on reviewing other books, simply because I haven't finished a single title. Hopefully, I'll have that review posted by tomorrow. At the moment, my days are cut into little chunks because I'm currently driving my son to school and doing the school-to-pool run with three teenagers. This has also thrown a kink in my blog-hopping and I apologize for not having the time to visit other bloggers. Hopefully, we'll get adjusted, soon, and eventually the kiddo will return to driving himself to school (I just don't want him driving a distracting carload of teens).

Thanks to Lisa Roe and the publisher for the review copy of The Woodstock Story Book!

11 comments:

  1. Why isn't he driving himself to school now? Nerves?

    Pfft, Woodstock. They keep having anniversaries of it over my birthday.

    The Gabon Virus looks good!

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  2. I just jumped over to Wikipedia because I really don't know too much about Woodstock. What a wild time; I don't envy the property owners but what a great adventure to be a participant.

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  3. I was 10 when Woodstock occurred, so I don't really remember it, but I certainly do remember the music from it. This book sounds groovy, baby!

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  4. Carrie,

    Nope, not nerves (if so, it would be Mom's nerves). There are two reasons. He's not getting quite enough sleep, yet (kiddo is a night owl, by nature) and they haven't cut back the weeds on the highway. We have to make a left turn onto a highway and I know he's cautious but people barrel along at 60-65 mph on that stretch and I don't want him making that left turn till the visibility is better. Plus, I like hauling the teens to the pool. They're funny.

    Ha! Now I've got a reference point so I won't forget your birthday, again!

    The Gabon Virus is great. A little heavy on coincidences, but I didn't care. It was too fun to allow piddly little plotting snafus to get in the way of the fun. :)

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  5. Care,

    There are some pictures of the mess that was left behind after the concert was over. Yeah, you said it. I'd hate to be the property owners who had to clean up after a 3-day party, but it does look memorable. I didn't know a lot about Woodstock, either. I was surprised to find that Arlo Guthrie performed, although I shouldn't be. I love Arlo and Alice's Restaurant was kind of iconic.

    Kathy,

    I was 6 when Woodstock occurred. My only real hippie memories are from our trips to Colorado. I was afraid of them! LOL

    The music was great. I love the music of that era. The Dish (an Australian movie) is about the Australian role in televising the moonwalk and it has my all-time favorite soundtrack -- which, unfortunately, I could never find on CD, darn it.

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  6. I would love to read this. Like I was telling you, I was not born until 10 years later, but I think I would have loved coming of age in the late 60s, early 70s. I would have been at Woodstock. I love the music, I love the liberal attitudes, I love the free expression of the hippies. Of course, we would be "Hippie Lite", right? lol No living in communes! You have to draw the line somewhere.

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  7. Rebecca,

    The 60's and 70's were a great time to be a kid. I actually had a friend (quite a bit older than me and now deceased) who lived in a commune. She said she spun and dyed her own yarn for weaving. How cool is that? But, yeah . . . Hippie Lite would be about as far as I would go.

    The book is great. I have another book you'd probably enjoy, but I'm not sure where it is. It's a picture book of houses built by hippies. They are (or were) so cool! They were a real hodge-podge because people used whatever materials were available and they were massively artistic. One has tile everywhere and the tiles were all made and fired by the person who owned that particular house. They tended to be very, very colorfully decorated. You'd love it. If I can ever find it, I'll tell you the title. I just googled "hippie houses" and that brought up some interesting pics!

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  8. I hope to get this one. I was a in my 2nd year of high school then LOL

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  9. Diane,

    Very cool! You must remember it well, then, yes?

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  10. This book looks like great fun! I've been curious lately about Woodstock myself, and have been browing some library books.

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  11. Tara,

    I thought this was such a fun book. It surprised me that I didn't feel like that "storybook" quality detracted from the book at all.

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