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Written By: Rita Williams- Garcia

Awards and Honors:

Newberry Honor

Coretta Scott King Award

National Book Award Finalist

Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction

Named a Best Book of the Year by: Boston Globe

ALA Notable Book

New York Times Editor's Choice

NAACP Image Award Nominee

Parents' Choice Gold Award

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I would absolutely recommend this book to 4-8th grade.  I did not know about this novel until this assignment.  However,  now it has become apart of my classroom library.  Rita Williams- Garcia does a phenomenal job of telling the tale of three sisters visiting their mother while addressing important topics such as diversity, family values, civil rights, and personal freedoms. She makes you think more about the role of motherhood and the relationships between mothers and their children.   She writes with such passion and description that I was engaged  from the first chapter on.   Because the novel has various themes, historical links, and a powerful message about family and rights, I would recommend it.

Listed are more books written by Rita Williams- Garcia that I would recommend for a middle school teacher.

Clayton Byrd Goes Underground

Bottle Cap Boys

P.S. Be Eleven

Jumped

No Laughter Here

Every Time a Rainbow Dies

Catching the Wild Waiyuuzee

Like Sisters on the Homefront

Fast Talk on a Slow Track

Blue Tights

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Story Elements: Characters, Setting, and Plot 

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Story Elements: Characters, Setting, and Plot 

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Characters:

Delphine- She is caring, responsible, and the narrator of the story.

Vonetta-  outgoing and loves to perform

Fern- outspoken and a poet

Cecile- A poet who abandons her daughters (Dephine, Vonetta, and Fern) and moves to California.  She writes poetry and supports the Black Panthers.

Setting:
The novel takes place in the summer of 1968 in Oakland California.
Summary: Dephine, Vonetta, and Fern are sent by their father from New York to visit their mother in California.  The girls anticipate a time full of fun, going to Disneyland, and spending quality time with their mother.  However, once arriving in California the opposite happens.  The girls quickly learn that they are forbidden to go into their mother’s kitchen forcing them to eat Chinese takeout every night.  They encounter strange people visiting their mother and eat breakfast at a Black Panther center called the People’s Center.  Here they attend a day camp.  At the People’s Center, they meet other characters and learn that not everything the Black Panthers do is negative.  One day the girls come home and discover their mother has been arrested for writing poetry. Eventually, they discover that their mother has been released from jail while they are performing during a rally.  The girls leave their experience in California forever changed and make steps towards having peace with their mother.

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The Author of One Crazy Summer expresses her opinion of why we need diverse books in this short clip below.

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Megan McCafferty sits down virtually with Rita Williams-Garcia to talk about Rita's favorite childhood book and why #WeNeedDiverseBooks.

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Grades 4-8

First, One Crazy Summer can be used for an entire novel unit.  There are plenty of resources online of comprehension check questions, vocabulary activities, quizzes, and text dependent analysis questions.  Literature circles may also be added to the unit study to keep students accountable for their reading.

Second, poetry is a topic frequently addressed in the novel.  Students could write poems with themes from One Crazy Summer as an inspiration.

For text to world connections, students search the local newspaper or the internet for something happening in society that relates to the novel and share it with the class.  (I’d suggest this activity more for 7th or 8th grade.)

To integrate writing into the reading block, students answer several prompts related to the reading.  Examples include: Who is the strongest character in the book?  Take a position and support it with specific text evidence.  One theme of the book is abandonment.  Who is abandoned and why?  The end of the book is not a fairy tale ending.  Do you agree that this how it should have ended?  Why or why not?

To integrate Social Studies into the reading, students compare some of the novels themes such injustice, black pride, friendship, family, inequality, and Civil Rights to topics learned in Social Studies class.

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Rita Williams-Garcia is a New York Times bestselling author of novels for middle school students.  She has had a love of writing her entire life, and has received many awards for her novels.
Suggested Links About the Author:
Rita Williams-Garcia's website
www.ritawg.com

Rita Williams-Garcia's page on Rutger's University website
comminfo.rutgers.edu/professional-development/childlit/williamsgarcia.html

Garcia shared her one of her inspirations for writing One Crazy Summer below.
"I wrote ONE CRAZY SUMMER because I grew up in the same period that the story takes place.  My memories are still vivid and I kept a diary from the late sixties, which I still have.  Children were a big part of the Black Panther Movement.  At that time there were no books about the roles children played in the movement so I thought I should write a story that focused on children.  I was also in awe of the women in the movement, like Angela Davis, Elaine Brown, Kathleen Cleaver and many more.  They were strong and intelligent women who fought racism and sexism mainly through their words."

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Rita Wilson discussing One Crazy Summer:

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Rita Williams Garcia Talks about One Crazy Summer

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Before reading this novel, students will need to have proper background knowledge in order to better understand the plot events.  The following would be introduced before reading:
Oakland, California—"Oakland is where the Black Panther Party originated. The relationship between the Gaither girls and their mother is the main focus of the novel, but Williams-Garcia surrounds that story with an exploration of the Civil Rights Movement and the themes of injustice, prejudice, and black pride, as reflected through Black Panther ideals". ( Crnkovich, p.5)

Black Panther Party—"The Black Panther Party was founded by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale in Oakland, California in 1966. Black Panthers wore blue shirts, black pants, black leather jackets, and black berets. The group’s primary purpose was to protect African-American neighborhoods from police brutality. They instituted a program called “Free Breakfast for Children” and advanced a political agenda concerned with employment, housing, and education. However, the organization became infamous both nationally and internationally for its aggressiveness against police officers".(Crnkovich, p. 5)

Below is a video about the program "Free Breakfast for Children":

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The Emergence of the Free Breakfast Program for Children Black Panther Party 1