One Crazy Summer

by Rita Williams-Garcia

This outstanding novel takes your child back o the summer of 1968, an electric time when change was in the air and on the streets. Eleven-year-old Delphine narrates the events of that summer, starting with her plane trip with her two younger sisters, Vonetta and Fern, from Brooklyn, N.Y., to Oakland, Calif. They are on their way to visit the mother who left them four years ago. As Delphine learns about the Black Panthers from attending their summer camp, about the changing role of women, and about her own and her sisters’ sense of strength, we do, too. Most importantly, Delphine comes to understand a little more about why her mother had to be on her own to find her way. This moving book suggests that healing and reconciliation happen a little at a time. If your young reader enjoys strong female characters, being plunked into another era, and family stories, he or she will be caught up in this 2011 Newbery Honor Book, Coretta Scott King Author Award Winner and National Book Award finalist. Delphine, Vonetta and Fern stick with you long after the book has ended.