One Crazy Summer

Rita Williams- Garcia
HarperCollins Publishers, 2010
Grade Level: 4
Lexile:  750L
Fountas & Pinnell: O
Suggested Delivery: Independent
Winner of the Coretta Scott King Award, Newbery Honor and Scott O'Dell Award Historical Fiction

                           Heart-Wrenching, Danger, Disappointment, Arising, Engaging 

                Eleven-year-old Delphine has it together. Even though her mother, Cecile, abandoned her and her younger sisters, Vonetta and Fern, seven years ago. Even though her father and Big Ma will send them from Brooklyn to Oakland, California, to stay with Cecile for the summer. And even though Delphine will have to take care of her sisters, as usual, and learn the truth about the missing pieces of the past. 

           When the girls arrive in Oakland in the summer of 1968, Cecile wants nothing to do with them. She makes them eat Chinese takeout dinners, forbids them to enter her kitchen, and never explains the strange visitors with Afros and black berets who knock on her door. Rather than spend time with them, Cecile sends Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern to a summer camp sponsored by a revolutionary group, the Black Panthers, where the girls get a radical new education. 

          Set during one of the most tumultuous years in recent American history, one crazy summer is the heartbreaking, funny tale of three girls in search of the mother who abandoned them - an unforgettable story told by a distinguished author of books for children and teens, Rita Williams-Garcia.

Teaching Strategies:

Key Vocabulary:

Brace

Jab

Whimper

Spectacle 

Signature

Terminal

Judgement

Riot

Black Panther Party

Before Reading Strategy: Have the students create a KWL about the Black Panthers and the Civil Rights Movement. 

During Reading Strategy: document a timeline about how Delphine interacts with the Black Panther Party. Pay close attention to how her feelings change. 

After Reading Strategy: Have the students work in small groups to create a reader's theatre from one of the scenes in this novel that they feel is one of the most important. The students will perform this for the class. 

Writing Activity: Write a passage in journals either defending or critiquing Cecile, the girls’ mother. Find evidence from the book that suggests she is a “Mommy, Mom, or Ma” or a “statement of fact,” as described by Delphine.

Interview With Rita Williams- Garcia

Meet The Author Book Reading