Illustrator: none
Genre: Historical Fiction
Subgenre:
Themes: family and siblings, abandonment and reunion, revolution, facing challenges, childhood and growing up
Characters:
~Primary: Delphine
~Secondary: Fern, Vonetta, Cecile/Nzila, Papa, Big Ma, Hirohito, Eunice, Sisters Pat and Mukumbu, Crazy Kelvin, Black Panthers
Awards:
~Newberry Honor Book
~Corretta Scott King Award
~National Book Award Finalist
~Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction
~Boston Globe Best Book of the Year
~ALA Notable Book
~NAACP Image Award
~New York Time’s Editor’s Choice
Date of Publication: 2010
Publication Company: Scholastic, Inc.
Summary: Sisters Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern remember very little about their mother. She left when Delphine was not even five, and Vonetta and Fern were still little babies. But now, at their father’s insistence, they are going to visit her, despite protests from their grandmother and all the terrible things that they have heard about her. Meeting Cecile, or Nzila as she is now calling herself, is not what the girls have expected. Instead, they are confronted with a poet, a reluctant revolutionist, and a woman with no interest in being their mother. What is worse, Cecile seems determined to through them into a revolution that she does not seem interested in taking part in. The girls have on crazy summer as they learn to navigate the streets of Oakland and the freedom fighters that live there.
Recommendation: I think that this would be an interesting book to teach children about the period from 1960 to 1975. In school, we rarely made it far enough in our history books to talk about the Vietnam War, the anti-war movement, and Black Nationalism. Because the book links familiar feelings and scenarios (being scared, getting along with siblings, moving and making new friends) with info that is new, children will easily be able to assimilate new information into their existing schemas. In addition, the book is simply a wonderful read.
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