One Crazy Summer

It had been awhile since Eli and I shared a book that we couldn't put down.  Enter One Crazy Summer. Rita Williams-Garcia’s story is set in Oakland, California in 1968.  Their mother, Cecile, abandoned sisters Delphine, Vonetta and Fern when they were very young.  Their father puts them on a plane to fly across the country and spend a month with her. Cecile is a poet, who uses her kitchen for printing, not cooking, and has friends and associates involved in the Black Panther movement. She is not a warm and fuzzy mom, as Delphine points out early in the book.  Williams-Garcia does a fabulous job of drawing a realistic relationship between the sisters as they figure out how to relate to Cecile.  Delphine, Vonetta and Fern also negotiate the conflict between the values and expectations of home (and Big Ma- their grandmother) and those of the Black Panthers.  This was an excellent way to learn about the Civil Rights movement, experience a different time and place, and relate to some kids from a family very different than our own.  A must read and an excellent companion to The Watsons Go To Birmingham- 1963.