Historical Fiction review: One crazy summer

1.BIBLIOGRAPHY

Williams-Garcia, Rita. 2010. One crazy summer. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN: 9780060760885

2. PLOT SUMMARY

Eleven-year-old Delphine has only a few fragmented memories of her mother, Cecile, who abandoned the family in Brooklyn after giving birth to her third daughter. In the summer of 1968, Delphine’s father decides that seeing Cecile is “something whose time had come,” so Delphine boards a plane with her sisters to Cecile’s home in Oakland, California. Upon their arrival, Delphine and her sisters found a cold welcome as they discovered that their mother, a dedicated poet and printer, is resentful of the intrusion of their visit. There were no Disneyland and movie stars. “No one told y’all to come out here,” Cecile says. “No one wants you out here making a mess, stopping my work.” Like the rest of her life, Cecile’s work is a mystery conducted behind the doors of the kitchen that she forbids her daughters to enter. For meals, Cecile sends the girls to a Chinese restaurant and later to the local, Black Panther–run community center, where Cecile is known as Sister Inzilla and where the girls begin to attend youth programs.

3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS

The book does not cite sources or recommend further reading. Yet, I believe the author has thoroughly done a research on the subject and presented a balanced fact and fiction though it may present a lot of stereotyping ideas children age younger then 8 or 9 may not be able to understand or differentiate. The critical analysis would be presented base on characters, plot, setting, theme, as well as style.

Characters

Delphine is presented as a regimented, responsible, mature, self-controlled, smart and strong-willed person. She is a caretaker and the protector of her young sisters. Though only eleven, she is the most responsible of her age. She knows how to act quiet and say the right words to avoid danger. Yet, she is only eleven. She fears standing up to her mother whom she is visiting for just 4 weeks. Each of the sisters emerges as a distinct, memorable character, whose hard-won, tenuous connections with their mother build to an aching, triumphant conclusion. She also displays some attitudes towards prejudice when she punches boys who tease her due to her sex, age and color.

This book is about experiences many of us share, for example, on the lighter side, taking airplane trips for the first time, being teased about some cherished possessions and feeling attracted to the opposite sex. One Crazy Summer has strong characters, attitude and humor, which all help create an enjoyable read. It also however reveals tough truths about racism

Plot

Though the story is in 1960s, today’s girl readers will be able to identify with Delphine and her sisters on several levels. They are confused, struggling and trying to survive and overcome. They live in the world of conflicts and abandonment. Through struggling and being a big sister, Delphine had to become a strong leader and supporter of her little sisters whom she has cared for since her mother left them. Her time and todays’ children’s time are not much different.
The story tells of an ethnic group’s life and social conflicts. It started with Delphine’s father seeing that it is time for his children who were abandoned by his wife, Cecile, to see meet up with their mother. He sent them, though being rejected my Big Mama, his mother, to see Cecile in Oakland, California. They arrived to find to be unwelcomed by their mother. They had to struggle to live. Their mother sent them to get their own meals and put them in the Black Panther training camp. Through the training, they learned new attitudes towards the society. They had new experiences seeing those social struggles in the people of color’s minds especially when Bobby, a Black Panther member who hid away from the police was shot dead in their house.
The plot is a little strong for children who may not have paid attention to social changes and development.

Setting

The time of the setting is in 1960s (1968 to be exact) during the African-American social revolution. There are two sides of the African American’s social differences to be compared. One is of those of Delphine’s grandmother and the other of those her grandmother calls ‘no good’ blacks of her mother and the Black Panther. Being in Manhattan, New York, seems to be different from in Oakland, California. On venturing to Oakland, the girls had seen hippies and have experienced the social uprising of the Black Panther. The author has presented an authentic and a realistic setting in this story through time, events and location for things really happening in the history. Manhattan and the Bronx are there. Alabama (where there were a lot of black people) where grandma came from was mentioned. Hippies and Black Panther social revolution mentioned were real in the 60’s, especially in San Francisco.

Theme

The book centers its theme on the Black Panther movement through the story of three little girls’ summer camp provided by the Black Panther in Oakland. It processes by depicting a clear picture of social differences between blacks and whites. It moves from the three girls being at the airport where their grandmother is trying to talk to the ‘Negro’ stylish lady through her own social class but was politely ignored by the lady’s gentle smile. It further goes on into the story of the girls travel on the airplane until their being among their mother’s social circle, the Black Panther. There, the girls learn to live among people of different attitudes, purposes and activities. They also learn to survive. Until today, this social struggle still holds true. Children and readers of this era can find the parallelism between the historical truth of the 60s and the present day’s.

Style

In the narrative, the tones of the story are quite strong and captivating. The language use of the black people is also used to make it realistic from the beginning. One can tell it when they call themselves ‘Sister Mukumbu’ and ‘Sister Delphine’ what social group the characters are from, for example. Their language use is captivating. They are ‘interactive and terse.’ They are dialoguing and not monologous or monotonous. The conversations are crisp inviting readers to follow on. As well, the attitudes, personal and socially, are portrayed clearly in the characters throughout the events of the story. They author has beautifully brought together the reality of social group, language, attitudes, struggles and historical revolution in one place. One intriguing thing is the mentioning of the historical moments challenging readers to find out more. For example, when she mentions the Party without overexplaining. What is COINTELPRO? Who si Li’l Bobby Hutton? What happened the night he died? Who is Edridge Cleaver? Why do they call the cops “pigs’? and some others. Those are history in themselves.

4. REVIEW EXCERPT(S)

Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction (Awards)
Coretta Scott King Author Award Winners 2011
Newbery Honor Books , 2011
From the Amazon.com, Teri Markson reviewed that this book had memorable characters (all three girls have engaging, strong voices) and a powerful story, this is a book well worth reading and rereading.

5. CONNECTIONS

Like Sisters on the Homefront is the first connection book I have found from the same Coretta Scott King Author, Rita Williams-Garcia. The main character named Gayle Whitaker, a fourteen-year-old girl, was sent by her mother to stay with her Aunt and Uncle when she got a trouble. It is also portrait of contemporary black culture and the changing life experience from one place to the other place.
Williams-Garcia, Rita. 1998. Like Sisters on the Homefront. New York : Puffin. ISBN: 0140385614

The second connection book I found is the typical historical fiction. Myers created a setting and character in World War II. This book is a Printz winner of a book. The story describes that a seventeen-year-old soldier from central Virginia recorded his battle experiences during the war.
Myers, Walter Dean. 1999. The Journal of Scott Pendleton Collins: A World War II Soldier. New York: Scholastic. ISBN: 0439050138