When her dad sends eleven-year-old Delphine and her two younger sisters, Vonetta and Fern, to Oakland, California, during the summer of 1968 so they can get to know their mother, Delphine has low expectations. That’s a good thing, since Cecile, who abandoned them years before, seems to resent their very existence. Known in the Black community as Nzila, Cecile is a poet. She keeps a printing press in her kitchen and needs time and space uninterrupted by boisterous children so she can write and print her work. She sends the girls off each morning to a free breakfast and programming at the Black Panthers’ community center. Delphine is initially resistant to the political indoctrination they receive, especially from Crazy Kelvin, the vocal Black Separatist with the gigantic afro, who immediately criticizes Fern for carrying around her white baby doll, Miss Patty Cake. But gradually Delphine begins to see that the women who run the camp are kind and caring, and the things she’s learning about political process and revolution come in handy when she decides to start standing up to Cecile. Rita Williams-Garcia’s fresh, funny novel resonates with depth and meaning that comes through the brilliant characterizations, sparkling dialogue, and a stunningly realistic recreation of a time and place in a story that concludes with a surprising, yet wholly satisfying resolution. She’s created a small masterpiece of a middle-grade novel that will have broad child appeal. (Ages 8–12)

Eleven-year-old Delphine has it together. Even though her mother, Cecile, abandoned her and her younger sisters, Vonetta and Fern, seven years ago. Even though her father and Big Ma will send them from Brooklyn to Oakland, California, to stay with Cecile for the summer. And even though Delphine will have to take care of her sisters, as usual, and learn the truth about the missing pieces of the past.

When the girls arrive in Oakland in the summer of 1968, Cecile wants nothing to do with them. She makes them eat Chinese takeout dinners, forbids them to enter her kitchen, and never explains the strange visitors with Afros and black berets who knock on her door. Rather than spend time with them, Cecile sends Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern to a summer camp sponsored by a revolutionary group, the Black Panthers, where the girls get a radical new education.

Set during one of the most tumultuous years in recent American history, one crazy summer is the heartbreaking, funny tale of three girls in search of the mother who abandoned them—an unforgettable story told by a distinguished author of books for children and teens, Rita Williams-Garcia.