Last of my Newbery 2011 Reviews

One Crazy Summer
by Rita Williams-Garcia
Newbery Honor 2011
Coretta Scott King Author Award 2011
Scott O'Dell Prize for Historical Fiction 2011


I enjoyed this award winning novel and had to read the whole thing in one sitting.  This book also includes the Newbery theme this year of children going away for the summer to live with long lost relatives or friends.  In this case, three sisters travel to California to spend the summer with their mother who left the family when the girls were very young.  We also learn about an important time in African American history and about the Black Panthers.  We get to know the three sisters and their mother through great character development in the storyline.  The girls and mother develop their own kind of relationship by the end of the story. 

Links:
     The author's website
     An excerpt from the book read by the author
     A great review from Welcome to my Tweendom