One Crazy Summer, by Rita Williams-Garcia

Set in Oakland, California in 1968--a peak year during the civil rights movement-- the story revolves around three African American sisters, Fern, Vonetta, and Delphine. In search of the mother who abandoned them, the girls travel around the city, having both extremely difficult and extremely joyful experiences with each other along the way. Williams crafts her prose to actually be extremely poetic, but the writing style is not difficult to read whatsoever. That's what's cool about the narrative style of this book--middle schoolers might not pick up on the fact that the narration is actually very poetic, but the fact that it is poetic makes it a very fast read and overall just exquisitely written. Another aspect of this book that made it very enjoyable to read was the fact that although the time period of the story is during the Civil Rights movement, the story is not about the civil rights movement. I think it's important to demonstrate how life was during that time, without including too much information about the timeframe and historical context. It's more about the advancement of the plot and the character development. The sisters are crafted to be extremely multi-faceted and vivid, which also made the story enjoyable and fluid. This is a wonderful book, and I would certainly recommend it.