The Rock Fight by Mike Sharlow

The Rock Fight is a great little story of Boomers as kids, on the cusp of coming of age. The author speaks with detail and assurance about life in the 60's (the Stingray bike gave it away) where, as the author perceptively observes, the neighborhood was everything, most especially during summer vacation. All the characters, most on the verge of adolescence, ring unerringly true, with nary a false note struck. The pace of the story moves along naturally, keeping the reader's interest without gimmicks or sensationalism, the descriptions sufficiently fleshed out to create a feel of the kids, the neighborhood, the era, and the plot engages, with a believable and satisfying climax and denouement. The narration is well written in simple, accessible declarative prose, with dialogue the stuff that kids actually said to each other in that generation. In summary then, "The Rock Fight" paradoxically succeeds as it faithfully hews closely to its own modest parameters.