Book Cover
Book Summary
Three sisters go to Oakland to spend time with their mother, who none of them remember except the oldest. They arrive to discover that their mother does not want them there and is determined that they will disturb her as little as possible. They end up spending all of their days at a summer day camp run by the Black Panthers. They girls make a few friends and learn a lot about the Panthers and their ideals. Along the way they learn about each other and their mother.
APA Reference of Book
Williams-Garcia, R. (2010). One crazy summer. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers.
Impressions
It took me a while to really enjoy this book. The beginning is very tense and strained because of Cecile's attitude towards the girls. She even refuses to call the youngest by her name, instead referring to her as "Little Girl". As the focus shifts a bit to be more about the girls and their time at the center, I began to enjoy the book more and could better focus on the story. The book is very well written and a good view into both the world and Oakland during this time and the differences between the attitudes of African-Americans in different parts of the country and of different generations. Ultimately, the book is about family and understanding each other.
Professional Review
"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."
Markson, T. (2010). [Review of One crazy summer by Rita Williams-Garcia]. School Library Journal, 56(3), 170. Available from: http://www.slj.com/
Library Uses
This book would work well as part of a study of the civil rights movement. Units on the civil right's struggles in the 1960's tend to focus on Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks and desegregating schools. This book would be a good addition because of the difference in focus. It shows a very different side of the struggle for equality.
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