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It’s the summer of 1968, and 11-year old Delphine and her two sisters have just been sent off to Oakland, California to live with their estranged mother. However, their mother is busy with her own things, and sends the kids off to a summer camp at the People’s Center, run by the Black Panther Party. Over the summer, Delphine and her sisters learn a lot about the world they live in, the mother who left them, and themselves. Not only does this have a great local setting, but it talks about the Civil Rights Movement on the West Coast, a little tackled subject.
— FlanneryIn this Newbery Honor novel, New York Times bestselling author Rita Williams-Garcia tells the story of three sisters who travel to Oakland, California, in 1968 to meet the mother who abandoned them.
Eleven-year-old Delphine is like a mother to her two younger sisters, Vonetta and Fern. She's had to be, ever since their mother, Cecile, left them seven years ago for a radical new life in California. When they arrive from Brooklyn to spend the summer with her, Cecile is nothing like they imagined. While the girls hope to go to Disneyland and meet Tinker Bell, their mother sends them to a day camp run by the Black Panthers. Unexpectedly, Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern learn much about their family, their country, and themselves during one truly crazy summer.
This moving, funny novel won the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction and the Coretta Scott King Award and was a National Book Award Finalist.
Readers who enjoy Christopher Paul Curtis's The Watsons Go to Birmingham will find much to love in One Crazy Summer. Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern's story continues in P.S. Be Eleven.
Supports the Common Core State Standards.