One Crazy Summer

                 "I'm Cecile Johnson and these are mine," Delphine and her sisters heard the women claim.Yet somehow Delphine knew she was their mother. One Crazy Summer, by Rita Willams-Garcia is the story of three young girls looking for their mother. Their mother left them when she couldn't name Fern, Afua. Delphine lives in New York, with her sisters, Voneta and Fern. To meet their mother they travel to Oakland, California. When the three sisters get there, things aren't what they would expect. They ate take-out every night, went to the community center for breakfast, and went to Black Panther summer school. Most importantly, its horrible not having a mother who cares for you, and says she didn't want to have them at all. Then in the middle of the book, comes Cecile's arrest, finding out she is called Nzilla , and a rally supporting the Black Panthers. In the end, Cecile becomes more like a mother to them on the last day that they spent there,before going home, without her. I liked this book, since it included real facts mixed in with the fiction.

215 pages