Eleven-year-old Delphine, accustomed to a maternal role for her younger sisters after their mother's departure, faces a starkly different reality during a summer spent with Cecile (their mom) in Oakland. Contrary to their hopes for a lighthearted vacation, they attend a Black Panther-run day camp, prompting profound discoveries about their family, personal identities, and the era's social landscape. This graphic novel adaptation, which I found engaging, features vibrant illustrations that effectively complement the text, particularly in capturing the characters' emotional states. While it serves as an accessible introduction to the Black Panthers, it also addresses sensitive family dynamics, including maternal abandonment, which might be emotionally challenging for some readers.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for an arc in exchange for this review.

I’m a big fan of the original One Crazy Summer and was excited to see a graphic novel version so this story can reach a broader audience. Same as the original, it’s a great introduction to the Black Panthers and exploring the hard topic of a mother who left her children. Some aspects of the original are lost but the illustrations bring new life to the story. The facial expressions alone speak volumes, particularly Cecile’s portrayal. Highly recommend for graphic novel readers! ARC via NetGalley

GREAT graphic adaptation of a fan favorite in my classroom!! This is a wonderful addition to any collection with gorgeous vivid images, intriguing plot moves, and a great expansion of the original novel.

Sharee Miller does a fantastic job of distilling the most important, and most emotional and powerful, parts of the print novel into a really distinct piece of art. The visuals help convey a really strong sense of time and place, and the character design helps situate young readers in the Black Panther counterculture really well. Some adults come across more as caricatures than characters, but that's also easy to chalk up to seeing the world through our preteen protagonist's eyes.

"One Crazy Summer: The Graphic Novel" is the graphic novelization of Rita Williams-Garcia's award winning novel, illustrated by Sharee Miller. The book is set in 1968 and follows three sisters who go to stay in San Francisco for part of the summer with their mother who abandoned them years ago. The sisters learn about what their mother is doing (writing poetry and using her home printing press for the local Black Panthers). We learn a lot about the Black Panther movement and what they were doing for children in the late 60s. Emotional, informative, and realistic, this graphic novel is a must buy for all middle grade graphic novel collections.

This book was originally published in 2010, and won many awards, so it's not a surprise that it was adapted into a graphic novel. Since it is historical fiction, the story holds up well. Delphine and her sisters Vonetta and Fern are sent by their father and grandmother from New York to Oakland, California to live with their mother, Nzila, who abandoned them when Fern was a baby. Nzila is very involved with the Black Panthers, so the girls attend the group's summer program while the mother concentrates on her art. The highlights of the original are preserved, but as with any graphic novel adaptation, a lot of the details and back story are neglected. The illustrations are bright and engaging, but not as reflective of the 1960s as they could have been. The girls' skirts are much too long, and there is Chinese take out shown in a very modern day plastic bag. Plastic bags were not much used until the late 1980s. They are so ubiquitous that people forget that. Even into the 1990s, it was more common to get paper bags where I lived.

Giving more readers access to this story is so important in today’s political climate. Focusing on a summer with their mother who does printing for the Black Panthers helps Delphine and her sisters see another side of things after being raised by a southern grandmother and dad in Brooklyn, NY.

The story flowed well and the characters were well developed. I recommend this book and look forward to more from this author.


****Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an ARC in exchange for my honest review****

The Gaither Sisters trilogy is one of my favorite series, and Rita Williams-Garcia is an author who really know how to write for kids. I am so excited to see this amazing novel in graphic format.
I loved how an already great story is given more life by illustrating it. I thought that the graphic version makes an already well-written and fun book even more engaging for reluctant readers.
I am beyond pleased to see more books by Black authors released in graphic novel format Please keep these coming. Our kids need them.

This was a great graphic novel that looked at many different issues outside of the historical issues the story is set around. I liked the way that the daughters felt at odds with their mother while also trying to understand her motivations for leaving. I think this also serves as a great way for students to learn about new historical ideas and be motivated to learn more on their own