One Crazy Summer

One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia

Delphine, Vonetta and Fern have been raised by their father and grandmother in Brooklyn.  But the summer Delphine is eleven, the girls venture out to Oakland to spend time with the mother who abandoned them when they were small.  If they were expecting any mothering, they soon learn they’ve got another thing coming.  The woman who gave birth to them, Cecile, is involved in two things: herself and the Black Panther movement.  To get Delphine, Vonetta and Fern out of the way, she sends them to a camp run by the Panthers.  The girls soon learn how very different life is in their mother’s world.

One Crazy Summer is nearly as covered in book award bling as Chains, but I must say I liked the young heroine much better.  Delphine has determination and character and Williams-Garcia gets you to care about her.  I found the portrayal of the Black Panther Party to be fascinating.  I find that often these days the Black Panther movement’s more violent tactics are painted as the “evil” offset to King’s peaceful “good” way of effecting change.  One Crazy Summer does not whitewash the danger and negative effects of Party participation, but it also shows the positive work that the Black Panthers did in their communities, assisting with voter registration and providing information on sickle cell anemia, serving free meals to those in need and creating a sense of pride in culture and heritage that so many African-Americans needed.

This is absolutely a book where the audience is not what it seems.  Because the narrator of this book is an eleven year old, some will make the mistake of thinking this is a book for middle grades students.  Unless you are talking about middle grades students who are very worldly and who have been through experiences similar to Delphine’s, that’s simply not the case.  To some degree Williams-Garcia expects readers to bring a deeper knowledge, experience and understanding to Delphine’s situation than Delphine herself does.  For that reason, it will probably be best understood by teens, especially those who are able to discuss the themes in the book, although some select tweens who have lived through similar experiences also may be able to handle the content.  There’s also a reasonable expectation of historical knowledge.

Information You May Want to Know:
Actual Black Panters are mentioned in the book – from Huey Newton to Bobby Hutton who joined the Panthers at 16 and was killed in a police shootout at 18.

Anyone looking up the poem Vonetta recites will find it’s not kid friendly – We Real Cool. If you are an adult or teen, make sure to press play to hear Gwendolyn Brooks herself comment on the poem prior to reading it aloud!

Terms of the Times: Negro and colored  are used.  When the girls first meet Black Panthers in Oakland they self-identify as colored and through their association with the Black Panthers they eventually change their term for themselves to black.

Family Issues: Cecile left her children with their father.  She has not raised them.

Sex, Nudity, Dating – A hippie sign reads Make Love Not War.  There is some very age appropriate chasing (literal) of a boy complete with toe scuffing, allowing a girl on a go-kart and asking”do you like him/her?” type questions. Cecile’s aunt remarries and tells her to get out, it’s not good having a big girl around when there’s a man in the house.
Profanity – “Jesus,” “crap,”
Death, Violence and Gore – Delphine kicks her sister to shut her up.  Cecile tells the girls that she “should have gone to Mexico to get rid of you when I had the chance” which seems like an abortion reference, but Delphine explains it to her sisters as “they buy babies down in Mexico for rich people.”  All of the girls fight (um, fist fight).   Some girls throw stones at a boy.  Delphine defends her mother by saying it’s not like she was writing “kill whitey poems.” Hirohito’s mother slaps him. Cecile’s mother died suddenly, killed by a car.
Drugs, Alcohol and Smoking – Cecile, Pa and a cabbie smoke cigarettes. Big Ma tells the girls Cecile sleeps near winos. Mention of men having too much liquor.
Frightening or Intense Things –In addition to the above, there is a plane flight where the girls are quite scared which might bother those afraid of flying.  At one point the girls are afraid of going to Juvie.  The whole idea of being abandoned and not wanted by a parent can be very scary for some.   Children repeatedly witness the arrests of their loved ones due to involvement with the Black Panthers.  There are many historical references to troubling times and events – including the Vietnam War, President Kennedy’s death, MLK Jr.’s death, Bobby Kennedy’s death, race riots, the death of Bobby Hutton, the imprisonment of many Black Panthers.