Module 5: One Crazy Summer

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

Summary: Delphine, who is eleven, and her two sisters, Vonetta- nine, and Fern- seven, are headed from Brooklyn, New York to Oakland, California to see the mother that left them seven years before. For one month during the summer, they will be without the city, the father and the grandmother, Big Ma, that they have known and endure the standoffish nature of the woman who birthed them. As the eldest, Delphine tries to navigate her sisters through the strange new setting as they experience Oakland in 1968 against the backdrop of the Black Panther Movement. Their world is opened up as they figure out what it means to be in a time of revolution, to be young and to be the daughters of a mother they have never known.

Response: I absolutely loved reading this book and experiencing Oakland through the eyes of Delphine. The energy in her narrations translated genuinely of a young person who had to grow up a little too quickly to support her sisters. I felt present in the moments of nervousness when addressing her no-nonsense mother or when feeling guilty for having fun as a kid should do. I especially liked the way that she interpreted what was happening with the Black Panther Party, how it would affect her and her sisters and what she gained from the experience of community pride. I thought the dynamic between her and her sisters was enjoyable and felt real while propelling the events in the story.

Reviews:

One Crazy Summer By Rita Williams-Garcia.

Feb. 2010.224p.Amistad Gr. 4-7

Eleven-year-old Delphine has only a few fragmented memories of her mother, Cecile, a poet who wrote verses on II walls and cereal boxes, played smoky jazz records, and abandoned the family in Brooklyn after giving birth to her third II 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.--Gillian Engberg

Program: Have a Black History in fiction book talk during the month of February and incorporate this book as well as others to discuss the movements that have taken place over the last several decades and how youth groups have always taken part in them.