First Review in for Pivotal Times: The Freshman Class by Kenneth Fenter

First Review in for Pivotal Times: The Freshman Class by Kenneth Fenter.

Pivotal times: The Freshman Class by Kenneth Fenter is the third book in his sensational series that started with The Ruin.

Clifton Kelly has lived through difficulties and overcome obstacles that would overwhelm most people. His being badly bullied in grade school led him to sequester himself by living alone in the wilderness forcing him to overcoming many of his insecurities. Cliff chose isolation instead of violence thus changing the course of his life forever.

 

When Cliff returned he stood up for himself gaining the regard and friendship of his former foe Hector. Cliff and his friends Hector, Emilio, Ana and Angelina enter Montezuma County High School in a time when their country is about to initiate many social changes.

 

Cliff is horrified by the freshman hazing he and many others endure. Cliff knows bullying when he sees it and isn’t about to stand by and watch it happen. Cliff uses the strengths he gained in the wilderness to affect change in school in spite of the many people who oppose him. Cliff and Angelina’s relationship continues to deepen as they deal with the pressures and difficulties of mounting racial tensions in school. Come and relive the nineteen fifties as Cliff and his friends year unfolds.

This story brought to mind many of the difficulties that most teenagers deal with in school while recreating the same issues in the nineteen fifties. Cliff is a wonderful character who fights to overcome many of his problems while never forgetting the feelings of the people around him. It was inspiring how he jumps right in when he sees another young man being bullied and organizing others to prevent it from happening again. The friendships he built with his former abusers and his willingness to help them in any way he could was wonderful.

 

It was also fascinating how Cliff’s brother reentered the story bringing with him the love of his life Keiko, a young lady he met while in the armed services in Japan. It was wonderful learning about the Japanese culture through Cliff’s eyes. It was sad to experience the stress Cliff’s family felt over Keiko coming from a different culture, but many of their fears were allied after they met her.

This incredible series is one that will remain one of my favorites and I just learned that the series isn’t over yet. I will be waiting impatiently for the next book in this series. Teresa.

Pivotal Times: The Freshman Class now available for e-books

Pivotal Times: The Freshman Class is now available for Kindle and Nook on Amazon and B&N.

I was notified this morning that the first major review will be posted possibly as soon as this weekend on GoodReads by Teresa who has reviewed The Ruin and The Bee Tree. I'm excited about her review. She contacted me the day after I posted that it was available and asked if she might have a copy to review. It is gratifying that the series is beginning to have a following. Pivotal Times: The Freshman Class is written at a level that students who are entering high school can handle it well enough. Although things were different in many ways 60 years ago, the freshman class this fall will be facing many of the same things the characters in this novel faced and overcame.

If you have a freshman or someone close with a freshman Pivotal Times by Kenneth Fenter will make good summer reading from Arborwood Press.

Pivotal Times: The Freshman Class Launched May 7

     Pivotal Times: The Freshman Class by Kenneth Fenter was launched May 7th 2012. The novel is now available in print edition as well as Kindle on Amazon.com A preview may be seen on Amazon by clicking on the cover and looking inside the cover through the second chapter.

     This is the third installment in the series of novels beginning with The Ruin issued in 2010. In The Ruin Clifton Kelly spends a year recovering his self worth after years of bullying compounded by severe parenting. He lives in ancient Anasazi cliff dwelling for the year living off the sparse resources of the high desert wilderness. In the Bee Tree Clifton emerges to face his parents and neighbors and reaches out to develop friendships and test his new courage. In the new third novel Pivotal Times, Clifton joins his former class mates, and friend Angelina Martinez as a freshman at Montezuma County High School. Angelina is a sophomore as he should have been. She is a transfer from the smaller school of Mancos.
     The main characters, Cliff, Angelina Martinez, Hector and Emilio Rodriguez, and Ana Hernandez, are all from Summit Ridge a plateau overlooking Cortez and have attended small country one room schools. They waste no time letting their presence be known in the large county high school.
     Cliff is challenged the first week, when Freshman hazing begins. After enduring eight years of bullying in grade school, he goes on a crusade to stop bullying in high school. His classmates recognize his leadership abilities and elect him to represent the Freshman Class to the Student Council for his stand against freshman initiation.
    
     Emilio Rodriguez, former bully to Clifton, now a friend, becomes a target of freshman hazing leading to a deadly encounter with racial overtones. The school rallies around him and the incident threatens explode into a racial riot between Anglo, Hispanic, and Native American populations.
     The highschool social scene presents challenges and opportunities for Cliff and Angelina and their growing relationship as upperclassmen begin to see Angelina as a desirable prospect for dating. Cliff feels threatened and jealous.
     The middle 50s were times of change, rock & roll, a court mandated end to segregation, a growing interest for equality in girls sports and important medical and technological breakthroughs. In 1955, even small town America was getting television and the dial telephone. Kids were watching movies such as Black Board Jungle, and Rebel Without a Cause. Salk Polio Vaccine and the coming Eisenhower interstate highway system was improving life.They were indeed, "Pivotal Times."

Kenneth Fenter