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I don't read teen books. Couldn't say I knew much of the woman's work. When I heard that her book was about the Black Panthers, however, my interest was piqued.
The one political group so difficult to write about that you can't find them in a single children's book aside from The Rock and the River by Kekla Magoon, of course. So what was her take? How was she going to do it? But the thing is, One Crazy Summer is more than merely a historical tale. It's a story about family and friendships and self-sacrifice. There are so many ideas floating about this little novel that you'd think it would end up some kind of unholy mess.
Instead, it's funny and painful and just a little bit brilliant. One Crazy Summer is a book that's going to earn itself a lot of fans. And a lot of them are going to be kids. Eleven going on twelve Delphine has always kept a sharp eye on her little nine and seven-year-old sisters Vonetta and Fern. That's because their mother left them seven years ago and never came back again.
A statement of fact. Certainly they didn't think she'd just leave them in a kind of daycare over the summer run by members of the Black Panthers. And they probably didn't expect that their mother would want near to nothing to do with them, save the occasional meal and admonishment to keep out of her kitchen.
Only Delphine knew what might happen, and she makes it her mission to not only take care of her siblings, no matter how crazy they make her, but also to negotiate the tricky waters that surround the woman who gave her up so long ago. The whole reason this novel works is because author Rita Williams-Garcia has a fantastic story that also happens to meld seamlessly into the summer of I've been complaining for years that when it comes to the Black Panthers, there wasn't so much as a page of literature out there for kids on the topic except the aforementioned The Rock and the River and even that's almost teen fare.
Now One Crazy Summer is here. Certainly I don't know how Ms. Williams-Garcia set about writing the darn thing, but if she had stridently set about to teach without taking into consideration the essentials of good storytelling, this book would have sank like a stone. Instead, she infuses this tale with danger, characters you want to take a turn about the block with, and the heat of an Oakland sun.
I mean, take the people in this book! Then I started thinking back to the sisters. Wiliams-Garcia must have sisters. How else to explain the dynamic between Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern? So it all became clear. If you love the family dynamics of The Penderwicks , you'll probably find yourself loving the same thing here.
Of course, when your heroine is an upright citizen like Delphine there is a danger of making her too goody goody to like. But this girl isn't like that. She has a duty that she believes in taking care of her sisters and she'll do it, even when they fight each other. Even when they team up against HER! The sheer unfairness of what Delphine has to handle, and the cheery lack of complaining aside from the occasional and very understandable grumble makes you care for her.
Her interactions with her mother are what make you love her. Because this mother is a pip. For kids, she's a pretty clear-cut villain from page one onward. And adults who have enough historical understand to be clear on why she does some of the things she does still won't like her. I wouldn't even be surprised if some parents referred to her as the world's worst mother. She isn't really, but many a parent's ire will be raised when they see how she refuses to call her daughter Fern by her name out of spite, or refuses to so much as look her own daughters for a while.
Heck, this may be the only book where the phrase, "Should have gone to Mexico to get rid of you when I had the chance," comes from the lips of a parental unit not that any kid in the world would decipher what it means. Under normal circumstances, when you get a kid talking about the selfishness of their parent at the beginning of a book they turn out to be wrong in the end. So naturally I was waiting on tenterhooks for much of this book to see if Cecile would be perfectly redeemed by the story's end.
Williams-Garcia never wraps anything up with a cute little bow, but she gives you closure with Cecile and maybe a drop of understanding. It's a far better solution. Williams-Garcia will even use character development to place the story within the context of its time. The opinionated Big Ma who raised the three girls gives her thoughts on any matter rain or shine.
Delphine then lists them, and kids are treated to a quickie encapsulation of life in ' And one of those very topics is the Black Panther party. I was very pleased with how Williams-Garcia sought to define that group. She dispels misconceptions and rumors. Delphine herself often has to come to grips with her initial perceptions and the actual truths.
As for the rest of the time period itself, little details spotted throughout the book make feel real. For example, the girls play a game where they count the number of black characters on television shows and commercials. Or the one time Delphine had felt truly scared, when a police officer in Alabama pulled her father over.
You can make amazing, believable characters all day if you want to, but there's more to writing than just that. This writer doesn't just conjure up people. She has a way with a turn of a phrase. Three Black Panthers talking with Cecile are, "Telling it like it is, like talking was their weapon. There is a moment near the end of the book when Fern recites a poem that is just so good that I couldn't seriously believe that a seven-year-old would be able to pull it off.
So I mentioned this fact to a teacher and a librarian and found myself swiftly corrected. It's only later that they start worrying about whether or not it's any good.
Otherwise, I certainly would have appreciated an Author's Note at the end with information about the Black Panthers for kids who wanted to learn more. And I was also left wondering where Delphine got her name. She spends a bit of time agonizing over that question, why her mother named her that, and never really finds out. Some kind of explanation there would have been nice. It was teacher Monica Edinger who pointed out that One Crazy Summer pairs strangely well with Cosmic if you look at them in terms of fathers on the Cosmic side and mothers One Crazy Summer 's focus. That's one theme for the book, but you could pluck out so many more if you wanted to.
Race and family and forgiveness and growth. Everyone grows in this book. But you'll have so much fun reading it you might not even notice. You might just find yourself happily ensconced in the world of Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern without ever wishing to leave it. If this is how Ms. Williams-Garcia writes books for kids, then she better stop writing all that teen fare and crank a couple more like this one. Kids are gonna dig it.
Oct 09, Afton Nelson rated it liked it Shelves: Well, I suppose since adults are the ones to vote, then yes. But if kids were voting, I'm not sure this book would make the Newbery radar.
One Crazy Summer is a romantic comedy film written and directed by Savage Steve Holland, and starring John Cusack, Demi Moore, Bobcat Goldthwait. Bobcat Goldthwait and Tom Villard in One Crazy Summer () One Crazy Summer () John Cusack and Demi Moore in One Crazy Summer () Matt.
I started reading it to my kids and ended up finishing it myself. Normally when kids have an awful, self-centered mother or parent figure in children's literature, there is a candy house or 7 little men to make up for it.
Not so in this book. Cecile never seemed to come aroun Important topic?
Aj V Super Reviewer. Three Black Panthers talking with Cecile are, "Telling it like it is, like talking was their weapon. Williams-Garcia writes books for kids, then she better stop writing all that teen fare and crank a couple more like this one. Certainly they didn't think she'd just leave them in a kind of daycare over the summer run by members of the Black Panthers. Goofs When the gang first presents Hoops with the Viking Captain's hat, he puts it on backwards then in the next shots it is forward, then backwards again. This is a very specific view, just a tiny part of everything going on.
Cecile never seemed to come around to her own flesh and blood. I kept thinking there'd be a point where she would wake up and develop a shred of human decency, but she didn't. And maybe it has something to do with the fact that I was an oldest child who was given responsibility for my younger siblings I didn't always want, but poor 11 year Delphine being forced to take over the roll of mother to her two little sisters really boiled my blood.
Her responsible nature was exploited at the expense of her childhood. I realize I'm missing the point the story was trying to make; about the unfair struggles that went on in the black community in Oakland in the 70's. Maybe the idea was for the reader to draw the parallel between the unfairness of Delphine having the world's suckiest mom and the unfairness of the African American person's daily struggle to be treated civilly and with human decency. Both situations were maddening and made no sense. How could Pa and Big Ma send their three little girls across the country to spend an unsupervised summer with a woman they knew full well had not one ounce of motherly love?
The story definitely had it's moments of triumph, like when Delphine was finally allowed in the kitchen to cook a regular meal for her sisters, the day trip into San Francisco, or when Fern ratted out Crazy Kelvin with her poem. I was just so overwhelmed with dislike for Cecile and anger at Delphine's lot to enjoy this story as I should have. Could it be that that was the point? At any rate, I don't think Cecile deserved that hug at the end.
View all 7 comments. She lives in Brooklyn with her father and his prim, old-fashioned mother, called Big Ma. Cecile Johnson abandoned the family before Delphine turned 5.
Now Pa thinks the three Gaither girls should spend a month this summer with their long-lost mother in Oakland, California. And it will be one crazy summer. You see, Cecile, now going by the more revolutionary name of Nzila, is much more devoted to her poetry and the Black Panther-led revolution than she is to her own family, in which she literally has no interest.
She shuffles the girls, used to a pretty staid existence in Brooklyn, off to a Black Panther summer camp to keep them out of her way. Serious, self-sacrificing Delphine, already too grown up for her age, finds herself having to take care of her sisters pretty much on her own. Although already resentful of the mother who preferred a life without children to hamper her art and her freedom, Delphine never expected the cold reception she and her sisters received.
And as for Cecile? Cecile was no kind of mother. But no mother should tell her children to their faces that she should have aborted them — even if she harbors that feeling in her heart. And no one — man nor woman — should feel that the only way to assist the revolution is by criminally neglecting his or her children.
I think Nzila, nee Cecile, could have followed the example of Ruth First, who was feeling the same pulls between family and justice during the same years. One Crazy Summer recaptures the excitement and the changes of the s, while also exploring the resilience of children in a less than perfect world crafted by adults. View all 4 comments. This is one of those "one more chapter and then I'l I think Rita Williams-Garcia is a fantastic writer and she derserves all the awards and honors she got for this book.
This is the first book of hers book I've read but it won't be the last. The story is fascinating 3 girls travel to California during the summer of to stay with the mother who abandoned them years before and the setti This is one of those "one more chapter and then I'l The story is fascinating 3 girls travel to California during the summer of to stay with the mother who abandoned them years before and the setting is atmospheric.
I loved reading about the Black Panthers, and even hearing the names of TV shows brought back memories of my childhood I had just turned 4 during the summer of All three girls are delightful but the oldest, Delphine, is especially strong, smart, sassy and funny. Her maturity and her relationship with her younger sisters is inspiring. I highly recommend this book to readers of all ages. Oct 25, Lisa Vegan rated it really liked it Recommends it for: Did this ever bring me back to the summer of ! I was not an African-American eleven year old girl visiting Oakland, but I was a fourteen year old white Jewish girl across the bay living in San Francisco.
There was a chapter that takes place in San Francisco. So, the author got one thing wrong about Oakland no, there are no hills at all in that part of town and maybe one thing about San Francisco wrong: Otherwise, much of the locale and time period seemed authentic. This story definitely fits on my orphaned-and-quasi-orphaned kids shelf. I really liked Delphine the narrator, at 11 going on 12 and the oldest of 3 sisters who live in Brooklyn, New York with their father and paternal grandmother, and who go to visit their birth mother in Oakland, a woman who abandoned them when they were very young.
I thought most of the story rang true. It was a bit on the edge of seeming realistic at times, yet so was my life at a certain point in time, so I bought it. The ending seemed not quite right but I can think of many other endings that would have worked even less well. I am glad that Delphine got some answers, very glad, and knowing what Delphine learns does give more credence and depth to what happened with this family, and why Cecile did what she did and why she was the person she became. The narrator really got across what it felt like to be a minority. This is a fine book for kids who enjoy historical fiction novels with a bit of adventure and novels with a believable child narrator.
I read this now because I think the Children's Books group is going to read this book as one of their January selections. Oh, and this book is very funny! View all 3 comments. Mar 07, Robin rated it liked it Shelves: I have mixed feelings about this book. It does several things successfully: Sister relationships, kids who have to take on extra responsibility at a young age, homeless teens, and political action in America in the s.
And all within a palatable mid-elementary storyline. I worry, though, that kids far removed from that time and place will somehow get the picture that the black panthers condoned abandoning your children. The panther characters in this book seem angry, dogmatic, and tone-deaf t I have mixed feelings about this book.
The panther characters in this book seem angry, dogmatic, and tone-deaf to the needs of the actual people in front of them other than food. The reasons for their political movement and the history behind them are only briefly touched upon.
The ending also implies that everything is now okay. Delphine's mother may have told the story of her hard life; it explains, but does not erase, the hardness she has shown her girls. While reading, I kept making connections to the memoir by Alice Walker's daughter http: I also have to admit that I can't help reading stories like this through my own experience of airline shuttling with siblings to parents whose attention was elsewhere, riding buses to pools and stores and other parts of the city alone at 8 and 11 -- It sounds free and adventurous and full of potential glamour but, for kids under certain age, it just feels unmoored.
Nicola Warren, Andy J. Edit Cast Cast overview, first billed only: Hoops McCann Linda Warren George Calamari Grenville Cuyler Graduation Orator Bobcat Goldthwait Egg Stork Kristen Goelz Squid Calamari Tom Villard Clay Stork Curtis Armstrong Ack Ack Raymond Sky Crossing Guard Jennifer Yahoodik Cassandra Eldridge John Matuszak Edit Storyline With a name like Hoops McCann, he's bound to get that basketball scholarship after high school, right?
They're out of school, out on Nantucket, and out of their minds. With this crowd, anything can happen! Edit Did You Know? During filming on Cape Cod, the actors' hotel was across the street from the drive-in. Goofs When the gang first presents Hoops with the Viking Captain's hat, he puts it on backwards then in the next shots it is forward, then backwards again. Oh, thank you, I think I will have some cookies-aehah! Crazy Credits At the end of the credits: Add the first question. User Reviews Hoop's crazy summer adventure 30 October by brwntide — See all my reviews.
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Report this. Other themes include family, forgiveness, and growth. The second book, P. Be Eleven was published in , and features the girls returning to their home in Bedford-Stuyvesant , Brooklyn. This book is recommended for ages 9— According to the critics, One Crazy Summer is a powerful and humorous story that is highly recommended.
Teri Markson, writing for School Library Journal ,states that it is "emotionally challenging and beautifully written" for children about ethnic identity and personal responsibility. Morales, writing for the New York Amsterdam News, states that it is written to teach black history in a meaningful and amusing way, and "it will keep you laughing out loud. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Library of Congress Catalog Record.
Retrieved 22 November The Horn Book Magazine , Nov. Association for Library Service to Children. Novel Unites , Texas, The Lexile Framework for Reading.