Route 66 Kids, the second in Michael Lund's Route 66 novel series, is a Babyboomers' coming-of-age story, reminding us that children always wonder about their origin. When kids asked "Where do I come from?" in the 1950s, they were really asking about sex, the biggest mystery for those growing up in an age of American innocence. Cold War children also wanted to know more about their parents and the community which surrounded them. Central characters in this novel, Mark Landon and Marcia Terrell, find out about the past in the structures of the Missouri small town they live in, which is located along "America's Main Street." Route 66. Throughout their story this great highway endures as a symbol of the promise this nation enjoyed at mid-century. Praise for Growing Up on Route 66(The first novel in this series)"I finished your novel . . .and was struck by how perfectly it seemed to encircle (of course) the world of childhood and its heady veering toward adulthood.It's a loving and funny book . . .and made me recall with mingled pleasure and embarrassment all the twinges and itches and passions of adolescence.Well done, and thank you or putting it into my hands." --Carrie Brown, author of Lamb in Love and The Hatbox Baby "A wonderfully well-wrought novel, set in a place that's still the stuff of myth, about coming of age in a simpler time when sex was giddily mysterious and life was filled with endless possibilities." --Bernard Edelman, editor of Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam and Centenarians: The Story of the 20th Century by the Americans Who Lived It "Growing Up does what every good novel does: creates a time, place and characters that the reader can see and feel.And like every good serial, you want the next installment.Mr. Lund has learned the lessons of Dickens, Anthony Trollope and the other great serialists.Having grown up in a small town on Route 66 myself, I felt Mr. Lund had been reading the childhood diary I never kept." --Harry Fuller, TV Executive, currently with CNBC Europe "In Growing Up on Route 66 Michael Lund gives us a loving look through the telescope of memory, resurrecting forgotten feelings in the idiom of adolescence sharpened by the lens of age--and wisdom.He takes us back to a time when the road ahead was a winding one, just right for joyrides, meant to be wandered, with curious roadside attractions and shady stops along the way.Reading this book is like returning to a summer night when you were young, when life was full of promise, mystery, and terror, that time at twilight, before your mother called you in to wash up and go to bed, when you were playing a leisurely game of kick-the-can and wished that the game could just go on and on.Fortunately, Lund promises that it will go on, in the second book in his series, Route 66 Kids, and, I hope, many more to come." --Eric Kraft, author of The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy "A book that takes us back to a quieter time - when learning about life and love was a pleasant journey, and the nights were full of childhood adventures." --Bob Moore, managing editor, Route 66 Magazine "an entertaining story of small town life"--Route 66 Magazine "funny stories of adolescence in the 1950s"-- Missouri Life "clearly an original!"--Farmville (VA) Herald
About the Author: Mike Lund grew up in Rolla, Missouri. He received an A.B. from Washington University in St. Louis (1967) and the Ph.D. in English from Emory University in Atlanta (1973). In 1970-71 he served as an Army correspondent in Vietnam. A scholar of nineteenth-century serial novels, he teaches college composition and literature. He and his wife of 33 years live in Virginia and are parents of two grown children.