One Crazy Summer
Ratings15
Average rating4.5
15
Ratings15
Average rating4.5
Eleven-year-old Delphine has it together. Even though her mother, Cecile, abandoned her and her younger sisters, Vonetta and Fern, seven years ago. Even though her father and Big Ma will send them from Brooklyn to Oakland, California, to stay with Cecile for the summer. And even though Delphine will have to take care of her sisters, as usual, and learn the truth about the missing pieces of the past.When the girls arrive in Oakland in the summer of 1968, Cecile wants nothing to do with them. She makes them eat Chinese takeout dinners, forbids them to enter her kitchen, and never explains the strange visitors with Afros and black berets who knock on her door. Rather than spend time with them, Cecile sends Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern to a summer camp sponsored by a revolutionary group, the Black Panthers, where the girls get a radical new education.Set during one of the most tumultuous years in recent American history, one crazy summer is the heartbreaking, funny tale of three girls in search of the mother who abandoned them—an unforgettable story told by a distinguished author of books for children and teens, Rita Williams-Garcia.
Featured Series
3 primary booksGaither Sisters is a 3-book series with 3 primary works first released in 2010 with contributions by Rita Williams-Garcia.
Reviews with the most likes.
These sisters go on a summer adventure and discover a whole new way to look at the world. And I did too. This is a good book, but even more it is an important book. This gave me a new way to look at the world. And we aren't told which way is right and which way is wrong. It reinforced to me that this is complicated.
A crazy summer
Delphine and her two younger sisters are off to California to spend a month with their mother. Their mother who they haven't seen in seven years. Their mother is a poet who has renamed herself and she is active with the Black Panthers. It's the sixties and it's a crazy time with a crazy mother the girls really don't know...will they connect?
I love the sixties, and I loved this story about a black family in the sixties during the Black Power movement. It's a wonderfully new point of view for me. It was a delightful story with dynamic and fascinating characters.
Summary: Delphine, Fern, and Vonetta go to California in the 1960s to visit their mother whom they haven’t seen in four years. She is not exactly welcoming, and she starts sending the girls to a summer camp run by the Black Panthers. The book traces the girls’ experiences getting to know more about their mother and their African-American heritage. It offers a great inside look at the Black Panther movement of the 60s while maintaining focus on the individual lives of the three girls.
