One Crazy Summer

Title: One Crazy Summer

Author: Rita Williams-Garcia
Pub Date: January 2010

ISBN-13: 978-0060760885

One Crazy Summer is, by far, one of the best new books that I've read in a long time.  The summer of 1968 is a turbulent one for Delphine, an eleven-year-old girl who travels from the safety of her loving Brooklyn home to Oakland, CA to visit the mother who abandoned her years before.  With a backdrop of the Black Panthers Revolution, she lives through major transitions in her emotion, mental and physical states.  She gets her first boyfriend, rides a skateboard and a cable car, and learns a lot about what it means to be. 

Rita Williams-Garcia captures an authentic young female perspective through Delphine and her two younger sisters.  The girls' characters are well-developed, and their voices are both believable and unique.  Williams-Garcia also succeeds in portraying the effects of abandonment.  Delphine, for instance, is forced to accept a tremendous amount of responsibility in her mother's absence.  Ostensibly mature, she suppresses many of the age-appropriate behaviors other kids experience.  She longs for acceptance and encouragement from adults, but has little need for friends or peers.  With Delphine, Williams-Garcia has created a very important literary character.  One that can teach us the importance of friendship and surrender.  This book is essential to any public or school library collection!  Winner of the Coretta Scott King award, a Newbery Honor book, and an ALA Notable book.