One Crazy Summer: A Newbery Honor Award Winner

In this Newbery Honor novel, New York Times bestselling author Rita Williams-Garcia tells the story of three sisters who travel to Oakland, California, in 1968 to meet the mother who abandoned them. A strong option for summer reading--take this book along on a family road trip or enjoy it at home.

This moving, funny novel won the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction and the Coretta Scott King Award and was a National Book Award Finalist. Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern's story continues in P.S. Be Eleven and Gone Crazy in Alabama.

Readers who enjoy Christopher Paul Curtis's The Watsons Go to Birmingham and Jacqueline Woodson's Brown Girl Dreaming will find much to love in One Crazy Summer. Rita Williams-Garcia's books about Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern can also be read alongside nonfiction explorations of American history such as Jason Reynolds's and Ibram X. Kendi's books.

In One Crazy Summer, eleven-year-old Delphine is like a mother to her two younger sisters, Vonetta and Fern. She's had to be, ever since their mother, Cecile, left them seven years ago for a radical new life in California. But when the sisters arrive from Brooklyn to spend the summer with their mother, Cecile is nothing like they imagined.

While the girls hope to go to Disneyland and meet Tinker Bell, their mother sends them to a day camp run by the Black Panthers. Unexpectedly, Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern learn much about their family, their country, and themselves during one truly crazy summer.

This novel was the first featured title for Marley D's Reading Party, launched after the success of #1000BlackGirlBooks. Maria Russo, in a New York Times list of "great kids' books with diverse characters," called it "witty and original."

"This vibrant and moving award-winning novel has heart to spare," commented Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich in her Brightly article "Knowing Our History to Build a Brighter Future: Books to Help Kids Understand the Fight for Racial Equality."

Author: Rita Williams-Garcia
Publisher: Quill Tree Books
Published: 01/26/2010
Pages: 224
Binding Type: Library Binding
Weight: 0.76lbs
Size: 8.34h x 5.88w x 0.85d
ISBN: 9780060760892
Audience: Ages 9-12

Accelerated Reader:
Reading Level: 4.6
Point Value: 7
Interest Level: Middle Grade
Quiz #/Name: 135338 / One Crazy Summer


Award: National Book Awards - Finalist
Award: Newbery Medal - Honor Book
Award: Coretta Scott King Award - Winner
Award: Scott O Dell Award for Historical Fiction - Winner
Award: Rhode Island Children's Book Awards - Nominee
Award: Georgia Children's Book Award - Nominee
Award: Parents Choice Awards (Fall) (2008-Up) - Gold Medal Winner
Award: West Virginia Children's Book Award - Nominee
Award: Black-Eyed Susan Award - Nominee
Award: Land of Enchantment Book Award - Nominee
Award: Maud Hart Lovelace Book Award - Nominee
Award: Volunteer State Book Awards - Nominee
Award: Sequoyah Book Awards - Nominee
Award: Young Hoosier Book Award - Nominee
Award: Rebecca Caudill Young Readers Book Award - Nominee
Award: North Carolina Children's Book Award - Nominee


Review Citation(s):
Bulletin of Ctr for Child Bks 02/01/2010
Booklist 02/01/2010 pg. 61
Kirkus Review - Children 01/15/2010 pg. 91
School Library Journal 03/01/2010 pg. 170
Horn Book Magazine 03/01/2010 pg. 77
Hornbook Guide to Children 07/01/2010 - Outstanding, Noteworthy In Style
Kirkus Best Children's Books 11/15/2010 pg. 12
Publishers Weekly Best Books 11/08/2010 pg. 35
SLJ's Best Books 12/01/2010 pg. 34
Entertainment Weekly 11/14/2014 pg. 111

About the Author
Williams-Garcia, Rita: -

Rita Williams-Garcia's Newbery Honor Book, One Crazy Summer, was a winner of the Coretta Scott King Author Award, a National Book Award finalist, the recipient of the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction, and a New York Times bestseller. The two sequels, P.S. Be Eleven and Gone Crazy in Alabama, were both Coretta Scott King Author Award winners and ALA Notable Children's Books. Her novel Clayton Byrd Goes Underground was a National Book Award finalist and winner of the NAACP Image Award for Youth/Teen Literature. Rita is also the author of five other distinguished novels for young adults: Jumped, a National Book Award finalist; No Laughter Here, Every Time a Rainbow Dies (a Publishers Weekly Best Children's Book), Fast Talk on a Slow Track (all ALA Best Books for Young Adults); and Blue Tights. Rita Williams-Garcia lives in Jamaica, New York, with her husband and has two adult daughters. You can visit her online at www.ritawg.com.