Cinnamon Girls is set in 1979, and it’s an era in music, fashion & culture that fascinates teens. The upcoming Joan Jett movie The Runaways, targeting teens & starring Twilight/New Moon leading ladies Kristen Stewart & Dakota Fanning, is set around 1979. Mentions of the biopic are all over the teen Twitter surrounding New Moon (see previous post.) Michael Jackson’s music from the late 70s/early 80s is experiencing a huge resurgence among teens, as are recording artists from the era like Aerosmith & the Ramones, as evidenced by the surge in song sales & vintage tees bearing band album art & logos. When I went to see David Byrne recently, whom I discovered as a high schooler in the late 70s, the audience was filled with parents my age accompanied by teens. Many parents can testify to their teens’ love of the music & culture of their youth.

In many ways, the late 70′s were a more innocent time, before laptops, texting and even, for the most part, the Walkman. (It came out in 1979, an event chronicled in Cinnamon Girls as a signal of the end of an era.) Was it a better time in America? I don’t know – discuss it with your teen…