One Crazy Summer

One Crazy Summer is a youth chapter book written by award-winning author Rita Williams-Garcia. This book is about a young girl named Delphine and her two younger sisters, Vonetta and Fern who are visiting their mother in California who left them and their father seven years prior. It is set in the summer of 1968 when the Black Panthers were becoming a heavy influence on society. When the girls arrive to California, they are greeted by their mother who acts like she wants nothing to do with them, and won't even allow them in her own kitchen because of some secret meetings held there. Their mother, Cecile, sends the sisters off to a summer camp that is sponsored by the Black Panthers where the girls will end up learning many lessons of their own. Delphine looks after her two younger sisters as a motherly figure while they are on "vacation", and together they learn about their mother's past, discover new things about their own lives and take adventurous journeys of their own.

I thought this was a very good read, I enjoyed the characters and the dialogue very much! The author did a great job writing the dialogue between the three sisters, and I loved how their conversations always included the two younger girls adding in little bits of hilarity and child-like observations. I thought that the setting was very cool and enjoyed reading about this era from a child's point of view. Because this book is a work of historical fiction, I would use this book in the classroom to help integrate units on the Black Power movement of the 60's. It includes social issues and family issues, both of which are great discussion prompts. Since there is a lot of history that students can be learning from this book, I would think to use a KWL chart before, during and after reading. Students could fill out what they already know about this period of civil rights movements, and as they read they can fill in what they have learned. The lesson could extend to talk about family dynamics and how they've changed or stayed the same.

Williams-Garcia, R. (2010). One crazy summer. New York: Harper Collins Children's Books.