Module 10: One Crazy Summer

Citation
Williams-Garcia, R.  (2010).  One Crazy Summer.  New York: Scholastic.

Summary
Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern live with their father and Big Ma in Brooklyn.  During the summer of 1968, their father decides that the girls should visit their mother, Cecile, in Oakland, CA.  Cecile left the family seven years earlier, just after seven-year-old Fern had been born.  Hardly a figure of nurturing motherhood, poet Cecile bars the girls from her kitchen and sends them to get Chinese food for supper or to have breakfast at the People's Center.  Run by the Black Panthers, the People's Center provides a day camp for children where Delphine and her sisters spend most of their vacation and learn about justice, injustice, assertiveness, and revolution.  Furthermore, Cecile, known as Nzila (Inzilla to the girls, at first!) has a connection to this much-vilified group of militants.  Though the unrest and political climate of 1968 play an indispensable role in the novel's action, the primary plot centers around the unconventional relationship of the girls to their mysterious mother and their attempt to connect.

Impression
Williams-Garcia skillfully endears readers to her three young heroines.  Personally, I could find many elements of Delphine's character with which I could personally identify.  However, one of the most fascinating aspects of this book lies in the characterization of Cecile.  At first, the girls want to go home; I, too, wanted to be far away from this unpleasant person in the first half of the book.  As the story progresses, however, I find myself drawn to Nzila with compassion and sympathy.  While Williams-Garcia does not let Cecile off the hook as a mother, she very convincingly portrays a young woman who fell in over her head by having three daughters before she could rightly care for herself.  By the story's conclusion, I wanted to hug her, too.

In addition, I have been prompted by this book to research more about the Black Panthers and their role in the Civil Rights movement.  After my preliminary findings, I would be hard pressed to say that its founder, Huey Newton, aspired to the same moral high road that Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr., pursued (whatever their personal indiscretions); he seems to have had little compunction against inflicting physical harm to attain a political end.  However, the Black Panthers' insistent demand for justice and firm commitment to empowering African-American people and communities has made a lasting mark in American society for the better.
  
Review
Engberg, G. (2010).  One crazy summer [book review].  Booklist, 106(11), 61.  Retrieved from Children's Literature Comprehensive Database
Starred Review* Eleven-year-old Delphine has only a few fragmented memories of her mother, Cecile, a poet who wrote verses on walls and cereal boxes, played smoky jazz records, and abandoned the family in Brooklyn after giving birth to her third daughter. In the summer of 1968, Delphine’s father decides that seeing Cecile is “something whose time had come,” and Delphine boards a plane with her sisters to Cecile’s home in Oakland. What they find there is far from their California dreams of Disneyland and movie stars. “No one told y’all to come out here,” Cecile says. “No one wants you out here making a mess, stopping my work.” Like the rest of her life, Cecile’s work is a mystery conducted behind the doors of the kitchen that she forbids her daughters to enter. For meals, Cecile sends the girls to a Chinese restaurant or to the local, Black Panther–run community center, where Cecile is known as Sister Inzilla and where the girls begin to attend youth programs. Regimented, responsible, strong-willed Delphine narrates in an unforgettable voice, but each of the sisters emerges as a distinct, memorable character, whose hard-won, tenuous connections with their mother build to an aching, triumphant conclusion. Set during a pivotal moment in African American history, this vibrant novel shows the subtle ways that political movements affect personal lives; but just as memorable is the finely drawn, universal story of children reclaiming a reluctant parent’s love. Grades 4-7

Ideas for Use
Without a doubt, I would use this book in a middle school book display concerning Civil Rights, social justice, or the 1960's, mixed with nonfiction offerings.  I would also use this book in studying the different approaches that King, Malcom X, Cesar Chavez, and the Black Panthers (among others) pursued in extending the boundaries of democratic ideals in America.  

Module 7: The Other Half of My Heart

Citation
Frazier, S.  (2010).  The Other Half of My Heart.  New York: Delacorte Press.
 
Summary
The daughters of an African-American mother and white father, Minni and Keira are twin sisters from Port Townsend, WA.  However, shy, animal-loving Minni's skin is light enough to pass as white; outgoing, athletic Keira's skin is dark, like her mother's.  After an opportunity arises for the girls to compete in the Black Pearl competition in North Carolina, they have the opportunity to visit their African-American grandmother and discover their identity beyond the color of their skin.

Impressions
I sincerely enjoyed this book and its characterization of Minni, Keira, their parents, their socially conscious grandmother, and Ms. Oliphant, her neighbor.  Frazier's sensitive exploration of race, family, and belonging prompts the reader to consider these issues, beginning with a scene in which the girls choose dresses for the competition: Minni is encouraged to make herself at home in the dress shop, but the owner scolds Keira for doing the same thing.  They begin to fear that their different skin color will divide them not only socially, but also personally.  Frazier's depiction of Ms. Oliphant makes me want to sit down at her table for hot chocolate. 

Review

Cruze, K.  (2010).  The other half of my heart [book review].  Booklist, 106(22), 55.  Retrieved from EBSCOhost

Starred Review* The idea of being a twin has built-in appeal—a sibling who has almost identical experiences of the world can be an instant BFF. That ideal informs the lives of sisters Minni and Keira, but the differences between the biracial siblings may be vaster than they’d like to think, because Minni’s coloring is white like their father’s, while Keira’s is black like their mother’s. During the summer when the girls turn 11, awareness of how they’re perceived is driven home when a storekeeper in their home state of Washington has a widely disparate reaction to the girls’ browsing through fancy dresses. Later, when the girls visit their prickly maternal grandmother in North Carolina and compete in a beauty contest for African Americans, Minni feels she is the focus of skeptical attention. Not only does Frazier raise questions worth pondering but her ability to round out each character, looking past easy explanations for attitude, is impressive. She also leavens the whole with easy humor and builds suspense over the pageant itself. Will the talented and outgoing Keira win the prize? Will Minni be able to overcome her shyness and shine? A novel with a great deal of heart indeed, from the winner of the John Steptoe New Talent Award for Brendan Buckley’s Universe and Everything in It (2007). Grades 4-6

Suggestions for Use

Upon considering this novel, I began to think of other books which explore this concept.  Puddin' Head Wilson came to mind, as did Zora and Me, which I recently read for this class.  I also enjoyed The Green Book recently -- a Bluebonnet selection for 2012-2013.  Because it explores the concept of race from 2010, I think that this book would be a great fifth grade introduction to the Civil Rights struggle.   Minni and Keira visited Raleigh's African American Museum of History and Civil Rights.  Perhaps students could be encouraged to research, identify, visit, and report upon local landmarks for their town's own civil rights historic places.

Module 6: January's Sparrow

When composing this blog, I had the most difficult time choosing which book to review.  I would like to mention The Negro Speaks of Rivers, Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse, Nana Upstairs and Nana Downstairs, Little Mouse's Big Book of Fears, and Little Pea with the respect and honor that these books deserve, as well.  History lover that I am, I decided to go with what was, for me, the most compelling of stories.

Citation
Polacco, P.  (2009).  January's Sparrow.  New York: Philomel.

Summary
Unwilling residents of the Giltner Plantation in Kentucky, Sadie Crosswhite and her family have taken in January Drumm, a young man sold from his mother when he was young.  After January attempts to run away, Giltner has him cruelly beaten and left for dead by his overseers.  This, in combination with a plan to sell Sadie's brothers off, prompts the Crosswhite family to flee the plantation via the Underground Railroad.  They end up in Marshall, Michigan, where they settle somewhat uneasily; the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, should officials choose to enforce it, dictates that even runaway slaves in free states must be returned to their owners.  The community of Marshall rises up to protect the Crosswhites when Giltner's cronies show up, and the Crosswhites have the unexpected gift of being reunited with January, who had carved a beautiful little sparrow for Sadie back on the plantation.

Impression
I could not put this book down. Prefaced by January's point of view, this story hooked me through its depiction of the courageous Crosswhite family.  While slavery and Jim Crow fast recede into the past, the importance of remembering "man's inhumanity to man" (in the words of Robert Burns)  in the United States as an historic reality strikes me as vital to the preservation of freedom for all.  In fact, National Public Radio carried a piece this week about the groundbreaking for the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.  Both President Obama and (Librarian!) former First Lady Laura Bush were present, demonstrating bipartisan support for its establishment.  The piece stated that it will not be long until veterans of the Civil Rights struggle and people who remember drinking from "colored" water fountains have departed this world.  While I enjoyed the illustrations in general, I would agree with Rochman below who said that the "characters' expressions in the colored-pencil-and-marker artwork sometimes overstate and simplify the complex emotions in the words."  However, I suppose that one could say equally that the emotions depicted speak of raw and visceral feelings unsuited to understatement.  Still, I can't help but feel that the luminous illustrations of E.B. Lewis (whose illustrations of Langston Hughes' The Negro Speaks of Rivers leave me dazzled and inspired) might be better suited to Polacco's well-turned words.  As Hamlet might say, "'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wish'd."

Review
Rochman, H.  (2009).  January's sparrow.  Booklist, 106(4), 52.  Retrieved from Children's Literature Comprehensive Database
Told from the viewpoint of Sadie Crosswhite, a young child who was born into slavery, this dramatic picture book is based on true events that took place in Marshall, Michigan, near where Polacco lives today. The narrative begins with shocking brutality on a Kentucky plantation: Sadie and her family watch while her foster brother, January, is whipped and kicked to death for trying to escape to freedom. With the threat of being auctioned off, the family members run away that night, bound for Canada, and the unframed pictures show their journey on the Underground Railroad, pursued by the slave catchers with savage dogs, until they find shelter in Marshall. Will they be safe there? Are there spies? Sadie goes to school and makes friends, but then the slave catchers come, and so does a surprising visitor. The characters’ melodramatic expressions in the colored-pencil-and-marker artwork sometimes overstate and simplify the complex emotions in the words. Still, Sadie’s first-person narrative, in modified dialect, captures the terror, excitement, and hope of the powerful history. Grades 3-6

Suggestion
Without a doubt, this picture book would be well-suited to an older audience.  Though Rochman's recommendation right spans grades 3-6 as a start, I could see this book being used with even older audiences in American history classes.  Kenneth Clark famously said, "History is ourselves," but so often the personal stories become lost in the saga of "big events."  Bringing slavery and the experience of a runaway family on the Underground Railroad down to the personal level of the Crosswhite family makes it more attainable and less likely to be dismissed categorically.  I would suggest this book for an introductory read-aloud to American history classes (in Texas, taught in 5th, 8th, and either 9th or 11th grades) for units relating to slavery, abolition, and the Civil War.  Older audiences might be more interested in delving into how causes of the Civil War were varied and the reasons for fighting even more so, but how the existence of slavery in the States truly created "a house divided."

Module 5: Zora and Me, Coretta Scott King citation, 2011

Citation
Bond, V. & Simon, T. R.  (2010).  Zora and Me.  Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press.

Summary

Carrie and her friend, Zora Neale Hurston, thrive in the close-knit community of Eatonville, Florida, true childhood home of the well-respected writer of Their Eyes Were Watching God and recorder of oral history.  Zora's imagination and storytelling figure prominently in the novel, full of legend and mystery of the Gator King and a grisly murder; Carrie, whose father left the family for reasons unknown, struggles with grief and loss.  Racial identity, family dynamics, imagination, storytelling, and loss all find their way into this story.  Bond and Simon have collaborated on a captivating and resonant novel for junior high students and up.

Impression
I sincerely enjoyed this novel, and I can certainly see why it won the award for promising new talent.  I have to admit that I was skeptical going into the reading of this story, for I remain a fan of Zora Neale Hurston and had a difficult time imagining how the authors would render her childhood self.  The book skillfully provides a sense of place, and its characters became real to me through the authors' adept narration.  The following quote really touched me:

"The bad things that happen to you in life don't define misery -- what you do with them does.  When Mr. Pendir and Gold could have chosen connection, they chose solitude; when they could have brought loving themselves to loving someone else, they wore masks and shunned love's power.  You can't hide from life's pain, and folks that love you would never expect you to."

I feel that Zora Neale Hurston would be pleased.

Review
Rochman, H.  (2010).  Zora and me [book review].  Booklist, 107(4), 64.  Retrieved from EBSCOhost
Told in the immediate first-person voice of 10-year-old Carrie, Zora Neale Hurston’s best childhood friend, this first novel is both thrilling and heartbreaking. Each chapter
is a story that evokes the famous African American writer’s early years in turn-of-the-last-century Eatonville, Florida, and the sharp, wry vignettes build to a climax, as Carrie and Zora eavesdrop on adults and discover secrets. Family is front and center, but true to Hurston’s work, there is no reverential message: Carrie mourns for her dad, who went to Orlando for work and never came back; Zora’s father is home, but he rejects her for being educated and “acting white,” unlike her favored sister. Racism is part of the story, with occasional use of the n-word in the colloquial narrative. Like Hurston, who celebrated her rich roots but was also a wanderer at heart, this novel of lies and revelations will reach a wide audience, and some strong readers will want to follow up with Hurston’s writings, including Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937). The novel’s back matter includes a short biography of Hurston, an annotated bibliography of her groundbreaking work, and an endorsement by the Zora Neale Hurston Trust. —Hazel Rochman

Suggestions for use
This book would be a fascinating read in conjunction with Their Eyes Were Watching God (if so, this pairing would be for 9th grade and up, the material of the latter being more mature).  For middle schoolers, this book would be an excellent springboard into the life and work of Hurston, one of the most influential and important American writers of the 20th century.  It would certainly be an excellent book to feature for a display during Black History Month, but I would say that its heroines deserve to be compared with Scout Finch.  In fact, reading Zora and Me in conjunction with To Kill a Mockingbird would be a fabulous study in the depiction of race, dialect, and place.  I could see this book as being a part of such a comparative study for advanced middle schoolers.