By Rita Williams-Garcia
Coretta Scott King Award
One Crazy Summer is the story of the summer of 1968 when Delphine and her two younger sisters are sent from Brooklyn, NY to Oakland, CA for four weeks so that they can “get to know” their mother who had abandoned them seven years before. Their mother, Cecile, is a poet and a Black Panther. She resents their visit and does not mother the girls at all.
Williams-Garcia does so many things well in this book. Her characters have depth, the plot moves along nicely, the setting creates interest, and the conflict causes the reader to empathize with Delphine, the caretaker of her younger sisters, and at the same time causes the reader to wonder why Cecile walked away from her daughters.
It didn’t seem to me like the girls needed their mother at all. They were well cared for in Brooklyn by their father and grandmother. They were safe. They were smart and talented. As the story unfolds, the truth and meat of the whole story stands clearly: children need their mother, no matter who they are. At first they appear to have nothing in common, but as the story unfolds their connections become clear and undeniable, even to them.
Williams-Garcia, R. (2010). One crazy summer. New York, NY: Amistad.
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