about the book
In One Crazy Summer, Delphine Gaither and her two younger sisters, Vonetta and Fern, just spent an unexpected summer with their estranged poet/activist mother, Cecile, in California. Instead of days on the beach, they ended up at a camp run by the Black Panthers and the experience rocked their world.
Now they are all “Power to the People” and full of black pride. They returned to the Brooklyn Bedford-Stuyvesant area fiercely independent, standing up for themselves, refusing to be bossed around, and very interested in the rapidly changing world around them—especially the Jackson Five!!!
But just picking up their old life is not going to happen. Adjusting proves difficult for all three girls. Uncle Darnell returns from Vietnam a damaged man, and their Papa has met a brand new lady friend, who he is marrying! Big Ma, their stern grandmother, still expects them to act like good little Negro girls. Big Ma makes it Delphine’s job to make sure Vonetta and Fern tow her strict traditional line, and the younger sisters are proving to be a handful!
Delphine is also worried about her first school dance, the new sixth grade teacher from Zambia, and being the tallest in her class. The only person she can confide in is her mother Cecile. She pours her heart out in letters and the notes she receives back always have the same advice—P.S. Be eleven and don’t grow up too soon.
Every adult in Delphine’s life has a different idea about what she should be doing and how she should be doing it. She strives to balance all these conflicting perspectives and to articulate her own feelings and beliefs. Being eleven proves to be very difficult. Eventually Delphine realizes “Twelve makes you know better than to wish for things that only eleven would wish hard for.”
about the author
Born in Queens, New York, Rita Williams-Garcia could read by the time she was two and was writing poems and stories by the time she entered school. In sixth grade she went looking for books about black young adults and found only one. With her teacher’s encouragement, she started writing about urban black teens and, at age fourteen, published her first story.
While attending Hofstra University studying economics, Rita’s interests turned toward dancing and politics. A creative writing course during her senior year started her writing again. She wrote her first novel for the class, but it took years before she got it published. Her postgraduate degree is in creative writing from Queens College.
Now the Coretta Scott King Honor Book winner writes full time. She is also on the faculty of the Vermont College of Fine Arts. Rita lives in Jamaica, New York, with her husband and two daughters.
Sources:
Author website
Author biography : JRank
Author profile : Harper Collins Publishers
Also by Rita Garcia-Williams:
Gone Crazy in Alabama (One Crazy Summer, Book 3). Harper Collins. 2015.
One Crazy Summer (Book 1). Amistad Press. 2010.
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