One Crazy Summer

Great History Coupled with Realistic Family

Every student who makes it to middle school has heard of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., but how many know about Malcolm X or the Black Panthers? An underrepresented piece of this important history comes alive in this tale of sisterhood, motherhood, and a bigger need to be heard and treated with equality. In Rita Williams-Garcia's beautifully written story, One Crazy Summer comes alive with the way the world existed in Oakland in 1968. Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern are packed up and ready to be shipped across the country to spend the summer with their mother Cecile who they haven't seen in years. Once Fern was born, Cecile left them to be cared for by their father and grandmother in Brooklyn and never looked back. While Big Ma questions Papa's judgment for sending them across the country to a woman who doesn't want them, the girls are full of nerves and excitement. As the oldest, Delphine is expected to make sure her sisters behave and don't embarrass Big Ma and Papa by being the "black girls everyone expects them to be". The color of their skin means they have to be better behaved than any white girl would have to be. When they arrive in California, it is clear Cecile didn't want them to come. She sends them by themselves to get Chinese food for dinner every night and to the Center to get free breakfast every morning. She won't even let them into her kitchen to get a proper glass of water. And she doesn't hold back from reminding them that she didn't want them there in the first place. When there is a knock on the door, she shoos them into the back room and tells them to stay back there and stay quiet. But Delphine can't help but peak and she sees men in black clothes with large afros: Black Panthers. She had seen some Panthers in Brooklyn, but they weren't like the men she sees now, with her mother. As the days continue on and Delphine continues to take care of her sisters while her mother ignores them, she starts to learn more and more about who she is as a young bl...