My new novel, The Outlaws of Maroon, is about a group of kids rebelling in a New York City public school during the McCarthy era of the 1950s. It's about the world of children and the adult world in conflict, in an atmosphere of political repression and attacks on freedom of thought. Much of the story takes place in the Little Woods, a fenced-off abandoned lot not far from the school. It's a wild wooded area bordering the West Side highway in upper Manhattan, supposedly inaccessible and off limits. The Outlaws of Maroon is not a kids' book. It's an adult novel written to also be accessible to younger people. The narrative begins from the kids' point of view, then expands and becomes more complex as they increasingly come into conflict with the adult world. Gabe and Henry are both from working class families, living on the fringes of a gentrifying Washington Heights neighborhood. They are both outsiders who feel oppressed by the city and by their school, and threatened by bullies. They find a forgotten room in the foundations of a building, and take it over as a hideout. Meanwhile the Little Woods is threatened by developers and their school is in turmoil because the vice-principal has convinced herself that the school has been taken over by subversives and she's determined to root them out. To defend themselves, Gabe and Henry bring other kids from their class down to the hideout, including two girls, Ari and Elkie. All of them are in difficult home situations. As the cold war is enveloping their school, they form a group that is somewhere between a club and a gang, and organize themselves for mutual support against an adult world that has failed them. In the Little Woods and the hideout, they construct their own world, and struggle to live their dreams. But a chain of events leads them to clash with their school, with the developers, and with government agents. The result is kids’ ingenuity pitted against overwhelming force. The Outlaws of Maroon tells a story about children organizing themselves when left to their own devices, banding together for support, learning to work together under difficult conditions and using their collective ingenuity to succeed. It's also a tale about the end of childhood and the coming of consciousness.