It's the early 1960s in Southern California and the city (as well as the country) is reeling from the assassinations of Kennedy and King. You want passion? It's here.

At the same time six-year-old Joshua Crass is reeling in another way when he suffers a reaction to penicillin and awakens from a coma completely devoid of memories of his life.

It's a dual journey by nation and individual to get back their identities, confront death, and search for newfound meaning in a disjointed world - and that's just one of the strengths of Josh's Wall that sets it apart from your typical coming-of-age novel.

From learning karate to thwart a bully and successfully winning his first fight to his loss of faith in school because of its unfair politics, Josh is on a journey of transformation that reflects the nation's lessons on injustice, inequity and personal strengths and weaknesses.

In the process of discovering the power of choice and its counterpart in consequences, Josh arrives at new discoveries about his changed world, his changed life, and how revised perceptions lead him in different directions.

There are the usual trappings of nearly every coming of age story: changing family relationships, first love, altered ideas about parents and authority figures…but against this backdrop of change are also amended ideas of right and wrong, justice and how circumstances bend truth, and challenges to belief systems.

When Josh wants to explore the Latter Day Saints church because some of his new friends go there, his father injects a degree of suspicion into the matter when he identifies the fact that most of Josh's much more successful schoolmates (who always get good grades) attend the same church. Does the Church influence the school's processes?

When Josh looks for something he can be passionate about - something beyond the karate which saves him on some levels - he discovers science and hopes it will not be as corruptible and questionable as his world has become.

And when everything comes full circle back to the shots of penicillin that changed his life forever, it's with a bittersweet knowledge that what has changed can never be reset to what was.

Josh's Wall weaves delicate themes of transformation within the life of a typical adolescent. As many of Josh's decisions about facing life boil down to a simple worry: "…I wondered which was more important to me, not hurting or not getting hurt." he faces his fears and in the process makes new discoveries about the adult he will become.

From his growing realization about how he can hurt those around him to his conscious decisions about accepting responsibility for that pain and choosing other ways to change, Josh's journey ultimately affects not on his life, but all around him.

Josh's Wall is suitable and recommended for all ages well beyond its young adult audience and it's a reflection of 1960s California culture and the passionate world of its times; all wrapped up in one young individual's process of discovery. Seeking an avid story? It's here.