Written by: Rita Williams-Garcia
Published by: Harper Colline, 2010
ISBN 978-0-06-076088-5
Plot Summary:
During the summer of 1968, three sisters, Delphine, Fern, and Vonetta, are sent to Oakland, California to spend a month with their mother, who abandoned them years ago. The girls believe their mother will be just like their grandmother describes, crazy and living on the streets. After arriving, and not gaining any affection from their mother, the girls are rushed off to the “Center,” run by the Black Panthers, for breakfast and day camp every day. The girls quickly realize their summer is not going to be what they were expecting. No trip to Disney Land, but many lessons learned.
Critical Analysis:
One Crazy Summer takes place during the summer of 1968 during the “Black Power” revolution. The characters in the story, mainly Delphine, Fern, Vonetta and their mother Cecile, are all well developed. Delphine is a responsible, caring, and smart eleven year old. She shows these, and many more admirable characteristics, throughout the summer while caring for her younger sisters. The book also includes characters who are historical, like Black Panther leaders Huey Newton and Bobby Hutton. The story told in this book is easily seen through the eyes of Delphine. She uses language true to the time period, describes events like a child, and shows a truly youthful point of view. This is how Delphine describes the excitement of their mother giving them a radio, “It was a sho-‘nuf, left-by-the-garbage-dump, second-hand radio. Vonetta and Fern squealed as if the little colored girl in the commercial were standing in our room eating buttered bread.” The plot of One Crazy Summer paints a story of the Black Power revolution that many children today would not believe. The book shares new experiences that are both scary and exciting for children. The style of writing used in this book shows the careful research done by the author. The characters use language that is true to the time period and entertaining. One Crazy Summer is a gem of a book that teaches the importance of family and acceptance.
Awards and Reviews:
School Library Journal: Starred Review. Grade 4–7—It is 1968, and three black sisters from Brooklyn have been put on a California-bound plane by their father to spend a month with their mother, a poet who ran off years before and is living in Oakland. It's the summer after Black Panther founder Huey Newton was jailed and member Bobby Hutton was gunned down trying to surrender to the Oakland police, and there are men in berets shouting "Black Power" on the news. Delphine, 11, remembers her mother, but after years of separation she's more apt to believe what her grandmother has said about her, that Cecile is a selfish, crazy woman who sleeps on the street. At least Cecile lives in a real house, but she reacts to her daughters' arrival without warmth or even curiosity. Instead, she sends the girls to eat breakfast at a center run by the Black Panther Party and tells them to stay out as long as they can so that she can work on her poetry. Over the course of the next four weeks, Delphine and her younger sisters, Vonetta and Fern, spend a lot of time learning about revolution and staying out of their mother's way. Emotionally challenging and beautifully written, this book immerses readers in a time and place and raises difficult questions of cultural and ethnic identity and personal responsibility. With memorable characters (all three girls have engaging, strong voices) and a powerful story, this is a book well worth reading and rereading.
Booklist: Starred Review* Eleven-year-old Delphine has only a few fragmented memories of her mother, Cecile, a poet who wrote verses on walls and cereal boxes, played smoky jazz records, and abandoned the family in Brooklyn after giving birth to her third daughter. In the summer of 1968, Delphine’s father decides that seeing Cecile is “something whose time had come,” and Delphine boards a plane with her sisters to Cecile’s home in Oakland. What they find there is far from their California dreams of Disneyland and movie stars. “No one told y’all to come out here,” Cecile says. “No one wants you out here making a mess, stopping my work.” Like the rest of her life, Cecile’s work is a mystery conducted behind the doors of the kitchen that she forbids her daughters to enter. For meals, Cecile sends the girls to a Chinese restaurant or to the local, Black Panther–run community center, where Cecile is known as Sister Inzilla and where the girls begin to attend youth programs. Regimented, responsible, strong-willed Delphine narrates in an unforgettable voice, but each of the sisters emerges as a distinct, memorable character, whose hard-won, tenuous connections with their mother build to an aching, triumphant conclusion. Set during a pivotal moment in African American history, this vibrant novel shows the subtle ways that political movements affect personal lives; but just as memorable is the finely drawn, universal story of children reclaiming a reluctant parent’s love.
Kirkus Reviews: A flight from New York to Oakland, Calif., to spend the summer of 1968 with the mother who abandoned Delphine and her two sisters was the easy part. Once there, the negative things their grandmother had said about their mother, Cecile, seem true: She is uninterested in her daughters and secretive about her work and the mysterious men in black berets who visit. The sisters are sent off to a Black Panther day camp, where Delphine finds herself skeptical of the worldview of the militants while making the best of their situation. Delphine is the pitch-perfect older sister, wise beyond her years, an expert at handling her siblings: "Just like I know how to lift my sisters up, I also knew how to needle them just right." Each girl has a distinct response to her motherless state, and Williams-Garcia provides details that make each characterization crystal clear. The depiction of the time is well done, and while the girls are caught up in the difficulties of adults, their resilience is celebrated and energetically told with writing that snaps off the page.
Connections:
This book can be tied in with a study of the civil rights movement during African American History Month (February). Students can research and give a short presentation on a leader, event or participant in the Black Power revolution.
Lead a discussion with the following questions: How would it feel to be eleven years old and in charge of younger siblings during your summer vacation? Which character are you most like in the story and why?
Introduce students to shrimp lo mein, and invite them to try eating it with chop sticks.
Related Titles:
Magoon, Kekla. The Rock and the River. New York: Aladdin, 2009.
Van Peebles, Mario. Panther: A Pictorial History of the Black Panthers and the Story Behind the Film. New York: Newmarket Press, 1995.
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