After she meets nineteen-year-old Ishmael, Joni Byrnes stops caring about home, school, and swim team. Instead, she embraces Ishmael’s hippy lifestyle of music, pot, and Hermann Hesse. When she sells marijuana for Ishmael, Joni gains notoriety as Joni Juana — but her new found popularity ends in a bust. While Ishmael goes to prison, Joni avoids juvenile detention by agreeing to spend the summer of 1969 at Camp Saint Augustine of Hippo teaching inner-city black kids to swim. Joni arrives at camp with two joints stuffed in the pockets of her cutoffs. As the only white counselor, she’s greeted with: “You couldn’t find no crackers to save?” In a year marked by the Vietnam War, pressure for civil rights, the Manson Family murders, the first moonwalk, and three days of peace and music at Woodstock, Joni’s choices dictate her future. When the end of camp is only a week away, Joni’s decision to smoke a joint jeopardizes the respect she’s earned and the agreement that kept her out of juvie. BECOMING JONIKA is a gripping novel about coming of age during a time of cultural upheaval and re-imagination of the American dream. At its heart, it’s a story of alienation, acceptance, and accountability.

Recommended to book clubs by 0 of 0 members.