Monday, October 25, 2010

One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia, Read by Sisi Aisha Johnson

As soon as the book was picked as a National Book Award finalist in the Young People category, I placed on hold on the audiobook. It's for younger students (the main character is eleven), but the setting and conflicts are mature. Delphine and her two younger sisters are placed on a plane from NYC to Oakland. Their mother left them years ago, yet their grandfather believes that they should spend a summer month with their mom. The sisters aren't sure what to think. Their mother isn't very welcoming, and Delphine has to mother her own sisters. Oakland is in the middle of the Black Panther conflict, and the sisters have to go to a Black Panther summer school to get out of their mother's house. Eventually, their mother softens toward them after they recite one of her poems at a Black Panther rally, so things turn out alright. Not perfect, but better. Not all kids have a good relationship with their mother, and it was nice to read a book where the mother isn't the best parent for the kids, yet the author shows that it's okay.

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