Book post: One Crazy Summer

Book cover from HarperCollins

Williams-Garcia, R. (2010). One crazy summer. New York, NY: Amistad.

*2011 Newbery Honor*

*2011 Coretta Scott King Author Award*

Delphine is only eleven years old, but must always take responsibility for her younger sisters, Vonetta and Fern. Her father decides that they will be going across the country, from Brooklyn, NY to Oakland, CA, to visit their mother, who left them six years earlier. The girls are swept up into a crazy summer. They try to get to know their mother but she wants nothing to do with them. They spend their days at a Black Panther-run day camp, and Delphine is not sure if they should be there. This book is a great look at a specific view of the civil rights movement, and a touching story of girls who need a mother but have a mother who doesn't know how to be one. It puts an interesting perspective on this time in American history, and could be used as a comparison with other novels set during the civil rights movement, particularly those set in other areas of the country, such as the south.