50 Fun Facts About One Crazy Summer

In One Crazy Summer, the cash Pa hands his daughters is meant for a visit to which attraction?

Disneyland never happens: on the first night Cecile takes the cash to pay for takeout and laughs at the idea of the trip.

Which boxer does Delphine picture throwing punches in the clouds on the bumpy flight in One Crazy Summer?

Cassius Clay is the name Big Ma still uses, while Pa says Muhammad Ali, so Delphine switches between the two. Names, and who gets to choose them, matter all through the novel.

In One Crazy Summer, what does Cecile call her youngest daughter instead of using the name Fern?

Little Girl is all Fern hears from her mother until the last morning of the visit. The coldness goes back to a family quarrel over what the baby should be called.

What is the name of the white baby doll that Fern carries everywhere in One Crazy Summer?

Miss Patty Cake goes wherever Fern goes, which is why a Panther's jab about a Black child loving a white doll stings. Fern shrugs him off and wins over the room.

What does Cecile keep in the kitchen that her daughters are forbidden to enter in One Crazy Summer?

A printing press fills the room, and Cecile sets her poems on it letter by letter. Before the girls find out, they guess she is forging money in there.

In One Crazy Summer, what does Delphine ride down a steep hill, screaming for the first time in her life?

A go-kart built by Hirohito's father gives Delphine a rare minute of feeling like a child. She only agrees to ride it to prove she is not scared.

Which animal noise does Fern aim at a militant she saw being friendly with a policeman in One Crazy Summer?

Barking is Fern's taunt because the officer patted the man on the back the way an owner pats a pet. She spells it all out in a poem of her own at the rally.

Which name did Cecile choose for her youngest daughter, only to be overruled, in One Crazy Summer?

Afua slips out when Cecile finally talks to Delphine about the past. Big Ma always said Cecile walked out because she was not allowed to pick the baby's name.

What do all three sisters finally do to Cecile at the airport before flying home in One Crazy Summer?

The girls hug her after Fern breaks out of the boarding line and leaps into her arms. Cecile, distant all month, holds them tight in return.

Which hit 1960s TV show made classmates start teasing Delphine about her first name in One Crazy Summer?

Flipper put a clever sea mammal on television every week, and Delphine sounded close enough for playground jokes. She once fought a classmate over the teasing.

Which landmark does the pilot point out as the sisters' plane circles to land in One Crazy Summer?

The Golden Gate Bridge makes sensible Delphine want to squeal. When she leans across her sister to see it, the fuss brings a stewardess over to scold her.

Which black headwear marks Cecile's taxi driver and her evening visitors as Panthers in One Crazy Summer?

Berets were part of the Black Panther uniform, worn with dark clothes. Delphine first spots one on the driver who greets her mother by an unfamiliar name.

In One Crazy Summer, which takeout noodle dish do the sisters eat nightly until Delphine insists on cooking?

Lo mein from a nearby restaurant is dinner night after night, eaten off a tablecloth spread on the floor. A stomach ache finally sends Delphine to the grocery store.

Which name, explained in One Crazy Summer as Yoruba for 'the path', does Cecile sign her poems with?

Nzila is the name the Panthers know her by, and she calls it a poet's name drawn from her true heritage. Delphine wonders why anyone would drop the name she was born with.

Which vehicle takes the sisters to Fisherman's Wharf on their Saturday out in One Crazy Summer?

A cable car takes them from Chinatown to the waterfront, right on the timetable Delphine has drawn up. They wish for a camera the whole way.

In which New York borough, home to the Jamaica district, was One Crazy Summer author Rita Williams-Garcia born?

Queens is also where her family settled when she was about twelve, after a military childhood spent partly in Seaside, California. In the summer of 1968 she was Delphine's age.

One Crazy Summer was named a 2011 Honor Book for which American prize for children's literature?

The Newbery Medal committee picked it as one of four Honor Books that year. The medal itself went to Moon over Manifest.

Which of these American book prizes did One Crazy Summer win in 2011?

The Coretta Scott King Award later went to both sequels as well, so every novel about the Gaither sisters has won it.

After the sisters demand a television in One Crazy Summer, what does Cecile leave in their room instead?

A radio turns up the day after Cecile calls television a box of lies. Back home the girls like to count every Black face that appears on screen.

Which regular at the People's Center does Fern expose as friendly with the police in One Crazy Summer?

Kelvin, nicknamed Crazy Kelvin, had lectured everyone about being Black enough, and it was Fern's doll he mocked. He slips away while the crowd cheers her.

Which woman makes Delphine and Eunice shake hands after their quarrel over Fern's doll in One Crazy Summer?

Sister Mukumbu teaches the daily classes at the People's Center and is the first adult in Oakland to make the girls feel welcome. She also orders a bullying helper out of her classroom.

What earns Delphine a scolding from Big Ma when she rings Brooklyn on her first evening in One Crazy Summer?

Calling collect put the cost on the family's bill, so the girls' proof of a safe arrival earned a telling-off. Delphine thinks twice before ringing home again.

In One Crazy Summer, Delphine is furious to find her own first name printed in which kind of book?

A dictionary entry proved Cecile had not invented the name just for her, unlike the names dreamed up for her younger sisters. Delphine thought Merriam Webster was the woman who wrote it.

Which jailed co-founder of the Black Panthers stares out from the newspapers Delphine stacks in One Crazy Summer?

Huey Newton was in jail over the death of an Oakland policeman, and freeing him was the Panthers' loudest demand. Big Ma thinks prison is where he belongs.

Which teenage Black Panther, shot by Oakland police in April 1968, does the rally in One Crazy Summer honour?

Bobby Hutton was the party's first recruit and its treasurer, killed at 17 in circumstances the police and the Panthers disputed. The children at the Center know him as Li'l Bobby.

Which sequel to One Crazy Summer takes its title from Cecile's parting advice to Delphine to stay a child?

P.S. Be Eleven follows the sisters home to Brooklyn. Its title repeats what Cecile tells Delphine before the girls fly home: act her age while she still can.

Which poem by Cecile do her three daughters recite on stage at the rally in One Crazy Summer?

I Birthed a Nation turns up while the girls tidy their mother's scattered papers, and they read it as being about them. On stage Vonetta slips an extra word into the title.

According to Big Ma in One Crazy Summer, Cecile left her family to live on the street with what for a home?

A park bench was Big Ma's jibe, so the tidy house in Oakland comes as a shock. Cecile later admits she really did sleep rough before Pa took her in.

Which classic does Delphine read aloud to her sisters on their first night in Oakland in One Crazy Summer?

Peter Pan sends Vonetta and Fern off to sleep after Delphine has bathed them both. Only then does she open a novel of her own.

What does Vonetta use to ruin Fern's doll while trying to impress new friends in One Crazy Summer?

A black marker turns the doll's white face dark, Vonetta's way of siding with the girls who teased Fern. Delphine scrubs, but the plastic stays grey.

Which novel about a child surviving alone does Delphine read to herself at bedtime in One Crazy Summer?

Island of the Blue Dolphins strands its heroine off the California coast. Its author founded the historical fiction prize that One Crazy Summer went on to win.

Which jazz singer, Cecile's favourite, inspired the name Vonetta in One Crazy Summer?

Sarah Vaughan, the singer nicknamed Sassy, was reshaped into a name nobody else had. It is why Delphine minds so much that her own name already existed.

Which Pulitzer-winning poet wrote We Real Cool, the piece Vonetta first rehearses for the rally in One Crazy Summer?

Gwendolyn Brooks became the first African American to win a Pulitzer Prize in 1950. Cecile sneers that she could have written the piece in her sleep.

Which surname does Cecile give the police for her daughters, pretending they are neighbours, in One Crazy Summer?

Clark is the name Cecile blurts out so that the officers will not take the girls as well. Delphine catches on at once and walks her sisters straight past.

Which brand of wristwatch does Delphine check constantly to keep her sisters on schedule in One Crazy Summer?

Timex is the watch that tells Delphine her sisters are up over an hour past bedtime on the first night. Living by the clock is how she copes with being in charge.

Which role does Hirohito play, spinning in circles around a teacher, in a lesson on revolution in One Crazy Summer?

The Earth turns and circles the sun, so the teacher calls it a revolutionary and ties the word to changing the world. Delphine enjoys watching the boy get dizzy.

In One Crazy Summer, the boy Delphine grows to like is African American and which other heritage?

Japanese is the answer Eunice snaps back when Delphine guesses wrong and insults him. He shares his first name with the emperor who reigned through the Second World War.

Where is the sisters' Uncle Darnell serving as a soldier during the events of One Crazy Summer?

Vietnam is where Pa's younger brother is fighting, one more worry for the family back in Brooklyn. Most of what Delphine knows about her mother came from him.

Which free food does Mean Lady Ming accuse the sisters of begging for in One Crazy Summer?

Egg rolls are what the owner assumes they have come to beg, so Vonetta and Fern march up and order like paying customers. She softens toward the girls later.

Which TV pop group's theme song do the sisters sing to needle Cecile into buying a television in One Crazy Summer?

The Monkees had an Emmy-winning NBC comedy that ended in 1968, the very year the story is set. The girls belt out its opening number to wear their mother down.

What does Cecile silently leave by the stove for Delphine, a rare kindness, in One Crazy Summer?

A stool, bought second-hand, lets Delphine sit while she cooks, and she takes it as an invitation to stay. Soon mother and daughter are working side by side.

Which former name of New York's Kennedy airport crops up in One Crazy Summer as a sign of changing times?

Idlewild was renamed for John F. Kennedy in December 1963, a month after his assassination. Old and new names sit side by side all through the novel.

Which souvenirs do the sisters buy in San Francisco after walking out of a gift shop in One Crazy Summer?

Postcards come from a second shop, after a clerk at the first watches the girls as if they were thieves. Delphine leads her sisters out with her head high and her money unspent.

Beside which airport fixture do the sisters first spot Cecile waiting in One Crazy Summer?

A cigarette machine half hides her, and Delphine senses who she is without knowing her face. A scarf, a hat and dark glasses complete the disguise.

Which idiom, also a chapter title, describes Delphine slinking back to the Center in One Crazy Summer?

Eating crow means admitting you were wrong, and Delphine had announced only the day before that she was not coming back. To her relief nobody rubs it in.

Which Brooklyn neighbourhood, long a centre of Black life in New York, is home to the sisters of One Crazy Summer?

Bedford-Stuyvesant is where the second book picks the story up, with the girls back home with Pa and Big Ma. Locals shorten it to Bed-Stuy.

In 2025 One Crazy Summer was retold in which format, with artwork by Sharee Miller?

A graphic novel edition arrived fifteen years after the original. It came out through Quill Tree Books, another imprint of the first publisher, HarperCollins.

Which supermarket chain's manager refuses to display Delphine's rally flyer in One Crazy Summer?

Safeway is where the girls buy their groceries, so the refusal stings. Delphine keeps count of every store that says no and vows never to spend a dime in them.

Which secret government programme does Cecile half-jokingly accuse her daughters of working for in One Crazy Summer?

COINTELPRO was the FBI's covert campaign to spy on and disrupt groups such as the Black Panthers. It ran from 1956 to 1971.

What is a stranger at the airport trying to do when Cecile steps in front of her daughters in One Crazy Summer?

He wanted to photograph them like a tourist sight, and Cecile tells him off for treating her children as a display. For once she defends them the way a parent would.