A review by ablotial
One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia
3.0
More like a 3.5 stars I guess. This book was really interesting and touches on some very interesting and controversial subjects for a book written for this age group. As the book begins, three little girls are leaving their home in New York for the first time to travel to California to meet their biological mother. They have been raised by their father and grandmother to be very aware of everyone around them and to behave in a way that will not be an embarrassment to black people everywhere. When they arrive at the airport in California, there is a question of whether the woman who is their mother even decided to come pick them up. They have been told nothing but bad things about their mother by their grand mother, and in that first day it seems that the grandmother is right.
This book was interesting because I haven't read a lot of African American fiction before, and I do not know much about the history of this group in my own country and the struggles that they have dealt with even after they were free of slavery. I read [b:Warriors Don't Cry|6521145|Warriors Don't Cry|Melba Patillo Beals|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1331241580s/6521145.jpg|6713045] a year or two ago and it really opened my eyes to situations that I thought were long done with by that time. It's hard to imagine things like that happening in my mother's lifetime. This novel takes place in an even more recent time in our history, but still the inequalities are evident. I know there are, even TODAY, things that happen in our country that would shock me and make me ashamed for my peers, but thankfully the people I interact with on a regular basis are (at least outwardly) accepting.
During their "crazy summer", the girls experience blatant racism first hand, and multiple times white people want them to stop to be photographed because of how they are dressed or have their hair done. The mom puts a stop to one white man at the airport (how would you like it if a strange man wanted to photograph YOUR daughters?! regardless of his race.) though the girls are too young to know better and are flattered.
I liked that the author didn't only focus on one racial group but also the Asian family who runs the restaurant down the street and a half black/half Japanese boy and his Japanese mother.
The girls participated in a Black Panthers summer camp. This was interesting to me, also. I had never heard of the Black Panthers, or of Bobby Seale and "Free Huey" or "Li'l Bobby". I spent some time researching this group on Wikipedia. While I understand the importance of such groups, I think I would have been overly cautious like Delphine. I feel like that wasn't an environment for children. Fine enough for adults who can understand everything that's involved, but I would be very concerned for the safety of the children (as Delphine said, "Rally" often turned into "Riot"). In this book (of course) everything turned out fine but I'm sure that wasn't always the case in real life.
And within all this, there is the relationship between the reluctant mother and her three girls. I enjoyed watching this grow, and watching the girls struggle for her attention and love.
Anyway, it was a very well-written and thought provoking book with a lot of complicated subject matter explained in a way that (at least I thought) was quite suitable for teenagers.
This book was interesting because I haven't read a lot of African American fiction before, and I do not know much about the history of this group in my own country and the struggles that they have dealt with even after they were free of slavery. I read [b:Warriors Don't Cry|6521145|Warriors Don't Cry|Melba Patillo Beals|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1331241580s/6521145.jpg|6713045] a year or two ago and it really opened my eyes to situations that I thought were long done with by that time. It's hard to imagine things like that happening in my mother's lifetime. This novel takes place in an even more recent time in our history, but still the inequalities are evident. I know there are, even TODAY, things that happen in our country that would shock me and make me ashamed for my peers, but thankfully the people I interact with on a regular basis are (at least outwardly) accepting.
During their "crazy summer", the girls experience blatant racism first hand, and multiple times white people want them to stop to be photographed because of how they are dressed or have their hair done. The mom puts a stop to one white man at the airport (how would you like it if a strange man wanted to photograph YOUR daughters?! regardless of his race.) though the girls are too young to know better and are flattered.
I liked that the author didn't only focus on one racial group but also the Asian family who runs the restaurant down the street and a half black/half Japanese boy and his Japanese mother.
The girls participated in a Black Panthers summer camp. This was interesting to me, also. I had never heard of the Black Panthers, or of Bobby Seale and "Free Huey" or "Li'l Bobby". I spent some time researching this group on Wikipedia. While I understand the importance of such groups, I think I would have been overly cautious like Delphine. I feel like that wasn't an environment for children. Fine enough for adults who can understand everything that's involved, but I would be very concerned for the safety of the children (as Delphine said, "Rally" often turned into "Riot"). In this book (of course) everything turned out fine but I'm sure that wasn't always the case in real life.
And within all this, there is the relationship between the reluctant mother and her three girls. I enjoyed watching this grow, and watching the girls struggle for her attention and love.
Anyway, it was a very well-written and thought provoking book with a lot of complicated subject matter explained in a way that (at least I thought) was quite suitable for teenagers.