is a juvenile fiction book set in Oakland, California in 1968. It won a Newbery Honor Award, Coretta Scott King Award, National Book Award, and the Scott O’Dell Award for historical fiction (you can hardly make out the cover because it has so many award stickers on it). I read/listened to it this week. Three Afro-American sisters who live with their father and grandmother in Brooklyn are sent off to spend the summer with the mother who abandoned them 7 years ago. Cecile, the so-not-a-role-model mother has no love or affection for the girls she left behind. She is busy writing poetry and printing it out on her own printing machine in her kitchen. The city of Oakland is a hotbed of civil unrest and the Black Panthers are trying to stir things up. The 3 girls are sent off to the “center” each day which acts as a babysitter/summer camp/meal provider while Cecile can get her “work” done. The girls, told from the voice of Delphine, age 11 and the oldest sister, are bewildered to find themselves without the protective love of their father and grandfather and thrust into a world they know nothing about: rallies, arrests, and even murder. Although I enjoyed the book, I am not sure how easily a young person would get hooked on the book (or not). Recommend for a determined reader; not one looking for fast action.
