One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia (2010)

There was a little colored girl on our favorite commercial who looked just like Fern. In fact, I said that little girl could have been Fern, which made Vonetta jealous. In the commercial, the little girl took a bite of buttered bread and said, “Gee, Ma. This is the best butter I ever ate.” Then we’d say it the way she did, in her dead, expressionless voice; and we’d outdo ourselves trying to say it with the right amount of deadness. We figured that that was how the commercial people told her to say it. Not too colored. Then we’d get silly and say it every kid of colored way we knew how (p 119).

The year is 1968. Acting the mother, eleven-year-old Delphine cares for her two younger sisters as they travel from Brooklyn, NY to Oakland, CA to spend the summer with the real mother, Cecile, who abandoned them years ago. It is immediately apparent Cecile wants nothing to do with them. She sends them for dinner at the local Chinese restaurant and foists them off on a summer camp sponsored by the Black Panthers for free breakfasts. When the girls hang around after breakfast, they receive a radical new education.

With all that is going on in the world, the girls, especially Delphine, keep the beat and remain the heart of this beautifully told story. They are so perceptive, so aware of their own presence on the white world and their expected role in black society. Coming from a differently slanted Brooklyn to Oakland, it was fascinating to see how they clashed and coexisted with the Oakland crowd, both children and adults.

One might be surprised and a little disbelieving of Delphine’s intelligence, but skepticism should be quickly dispelled as one learns what the girl has to navigate on a daily basis.

Fuse #8 also has a comprehensive and praising review. She raises the ‘bad mother’ issues saying, “many a parent’s ire will be raised when they see how [Cecile] refuses to call her daughter Fern by her name out of spite.” But I found her stubborness to be quite realistic and, based on my experiences, reflective of human nature.

An excellent book and one that will garner attention during award time. For a very funny toon review…

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