Bet your summer isn't like this one

Your "what I did on my summer vacation" essay will probably never tell of an experience like that in One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia. The year is 1968, and 11-year-old Delphine has been sent to Oakland, California, with her two younger sisters to spend a month with Celine, the mother she barely remembers. With no sign of a motherly bone in her body, Celine sends the girls to a community center run by the Black Panthers to spend every day, orders them out to pick up Chinese food for every dinner, and clearly tells her daughters, "No one told y'all to come out here." The story is told in the voice of Delphine, who is trying to care for her sisters, learning a new (to her) aspect of the black community, and hoping to gain some sign of affection from her mother. The humor of sisters bugging sisters blended with the serious historical information of a turbulent time make for a great read.