Rita Williams-Garcia
Amistad/HarperCollins
215 pgs
Delphine and her sisters, Vonetta and Fern, are on their way to Oakland, CA to visit their mother who they haven't seen in 6 years.
"Cecil Johnson--mammal, birth giver, alive, an abandoner - our mother. Statement of fact."
Delphine, the eldest at eleven, had always taken care of her sisters and she didn't really know how to do anything else. She wasn't sure she wanted to spend 28 days with this woman. Cecil, AKA Nzila, did not want children. Then or now. She warned the girls to stay out of her way. They were sent to Black Panther meetings in the morning, to get breakfast. "We didn't come for a revolution. We came for breakfast." But they met people who would quickly become friends and they learned more about their relationships with each other as well as with the woman who gave them birth and then left over a name.
One Crazy Summer was not about the Black Panthers but about family and what it means. How family comes in forms we are not always ready for. How sometimes it just might be necessary to take care of yourself first. Or not.
There were times when I felt Delphine's voice was too grown-up but when I thought about her years of taking care of her younger sisters, of sitting around with Big Ma watching the news, of pretty much raising herself, I understood that she would say those things and act that way. Her eleven year-old inner self was in a battle with her forced to be older behavior.
I give this one 4 copies. Pick it up.
Books Read: 1
One crazy Summer By Rita Williams-Garcia
Total pgs.: 215
Total time: 3 hrs 30 min
Reading: 3 hrs
Blogging: 30 min.
So do you think middle school students won't like this book becuase Delphine acts grown sometimes? I agree with you though, she acted very mature for her age all the time and sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed this book, a nice combination of family and the Black Panthers. I loved the moment between Fern and Crazy Kelvin!