During the mid to late 1970’s, a group of boys cope with life as they know it in suburban Woodland Hills. Part of the generation that lived through the tail-end of the “Flower Power” revolution, yet missed the Vietnam War, they experience all the joys and heartaches that come with growing up through the middle school years in Southern California. Told through the eyes of one of the boys, I’d Rather Be is a realistic “coming of age” story that deals with such adult topics as divorce, drugs, racial integration and death. It will bring tears of remembrance to anyone who can recall the growing pains of their youth, when life centered around a “fort on a hill,” and the friends who promised to defend it. Writers: Paul Nishijima, Jon Brekke. Pages: 134.