One Crazy Summer (Gaither Sisters, #1) in Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge

Sep 29, 2015 Melle rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, read-in-2015, african-american, juvenile, ny-new-york, copyright-2010, new-york, historical-fiction, sisters, 1960s

This was a fantastic book in its depiction of complicated parent-child relationships and sibling relationships, all set within the Civil Rights movement. Sweet, funny, wrenching, and thoughtful.

2 likes · Like · see review

Feb 03, 2014 Renata rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction, historical-fiction, we-need-diverse-books, childrens

OK, like Midwinterblood, this is a book I had a lot of misconceptions about? From the cover and title and intended audience, I assumed this was some kind of like fun Judy Moody-style adventure or something? But this book is REAL AS HELL. Like within the first few chapters, the girls' birth mom essentially tells all her kids she should have aborted them. ICE COLD.

I loved all three sisters, and I loved how this book makes the Black Power movement really accessible and relevant for tweens?? I think ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Aug 17, 2011 Celeste rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction, favorites, middle-grade-fiction, own-voices, 2010

Delphine Johnson has vague memories of her mother scribbling poetry on the back of cereal boxes and the kitchen walls. Of her nursing baby Fern one last time before walking out of their lives. Now her Pa is sending her and her two sisters out to Oakland, California for a month to stay with their errant mother. Expecting to go to Disneyland, the three girls instead end up in a summer program run by the Black Panthers.

One Crazy Summer is a fabulous book for young readers. Rita Williams-Garcia take Delphine Johnson has vague memories of her mother scribbling poetry on the back of cereal boxes and the kitchen walls. Of her nursing baby Fern one last time before walking out of their lives. Now her Pa is sending her and her two sisters out to Oakland, California for a month to stay with their errant mother. Expecting to go to Disneyland, the three girls instead end up in a summer program run by the Black Panthers.

One Crazy Summer is a fabulous book for young readers. Rita Williams-Garcia takes on the complex issues of racism, sexism, and radicalism without being at all didactic. The children and adult characters are interesting and well fleshed out, and the book weaves issues of friendship and personal growth into the larger cultural themes.

This book is delightfully subversive. It teaches young African American children to embrace a radical pride rather than the politics of respectability. Delphine, growing up in the 1960s, has been taught by her paternal grandmother, Big Ma, to watch over her younger sisters and avoid "making a grand Negro spectacle." While the language may have changed, institutional racism still exists in the 2000s and young black children are still often taught to keep a low profile. In their four weeks in Oakland, Delphine and her sisters learn the value of standing up for themselves.

One Crazy Summer also challenges normative family relationships. Big Ma has taught Delphine and her sisters to think of Cecile as "no kind of mother"--after all, she left baby Fern still craving her mother's milk. While Delphine and her sisters are eager to see their mother, they have internalized Big Ma's critique of her. Over the course of their four week visit, that antagonism has turned to a relationship of respect. Williams-Garcia avoids a mushy "we're the perfect family now" kind of ending--the reader comes away knowing that there will still be tensions and unresolved emotions between Cecile and her three girls, but the children recognize Cecile as a mother figure despite her unorthodox ways.

Finally, One Crazy Summer includes a message to think critically about the news. Back in Brooklyn, Delphine had seen news coverage of the Black Panthers. Eating free breakfast at the Community Center in Oakland, she remarks that the news had never shown the Blank Panthers serving pancakes to poor kids. Beating eggs, she thinks, is not the stuff of headlines. When it comes to radical political movements, mainstream news coverage gives us only half the picture. ...more

Like · see review

Feb 27, 2018 Sarah rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: young-adult-fiction, american-fiction, children-s-fiction, black-history-and-culture, fiction

This book was terrific! I was really impressed with the number of different parts of Black culture and history that Williams-Garcia very naturally fit into this one short, middle-grade book; it's no wonder it won so many awards. It was great to find a middle grade novel that prominently featured the Black Panthers, as I'd been looking for books like that and hadn't found many. The writing is also good at representing diversity of speech within the Black community in the US. The only part I wasn' ...more

Like · see review

Mar 13, 2021 Rae added it · review of another edition

Shelves: ya-childrens, 2021

Black Panthers. Poetry. Motherhood. Sisters. 1960s.

Like · see review

Sep 12, 2013 Adriel rated it it was amazing

Shelves: award-winner

I love a little history lesson in a tween novel. This book is a piece of Oakland history, with a view of the Black Panthers from the perspective of an 11 year old using their summer camp and free meal program. It was also a story of a child trying to understand why the adults in her life make the choices they have, why her mother walked out on her and her sisters, why the culture of Oakland is so different from her Brooklyn home.

Like · see review

Apr 30, 2020 Cheryl rated it it was ok

Shelves: juvenile-fiction, newbery-award, books-with-eleanor, black-authors

Read with Eleanor who gave this 4/5 stars. I am not sure what I thought of this book. As historical fiction it felt like it tried too hard at times. It mostly just made me sad about the estranged mother, her relationships with her daughters, and what we find out about her childhood. I think time will only tell how I feel about this book.

Like · see review