91 pages • 3 hours read
Rita Williams-GarciaOne Crazy Summer
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2010A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 22-25Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 22 Summary: “Itsy Bitsy Spider”
Vonetta gets on Delphine’s nerves with her attention-seeking rehearsal of her poem for the rally. Big Ma blames Vonetta’s constant need for attention on Cecile, who refused to pick up Vonetta when she cried as a baby. That night, Cecile is upset by Vonetta's loud recitation of the poem and tells Vonetta that her poem isn’t good. Delphine suddenly remembers being accused of lying when she told her fourth-grade teacher that her mother was a poet, just like the poets they were studying in school.
Vonetta sulks after Cecile yells at her. Instead of comforting Vonetta, Delphine tells her that she is just like Cecile. She also asks Vonetta if she would rather see her daughter or appear on a TV show. When Vonetta answers that she would rather appear on TV, Delphine says that she is definitely like Cecile.
Chapter 23 Summary: “Movable Type”
When Delphine returns home from the center, she notices that Cecile has placed a stool in the kitchen for her to sit on while she prepares her sisters’ meal. Delphine interprets this as a sign of welcome. The quiet in the kitchen reminds Delphine of when she and her mother spent time together in their kitchen in Brooklyn before Cecile abandoned their family. Back then, staying in the kitchen with Cecile required three things: “Don’t cry. Stay quiet. Want nothing” (147). Living with Big Ma forced Delphine to learn to speak up.
After Delphine washes the dinner dishes, Cecile allows Delphine to set up the printing press for one of Cecile’s poems, “Movable Type.” The poem is signed "NZILA," and it ends with these lines: “I / Pica / Elite / Courier / Sans Serif / Pack light. Leave swift. / I’m that type. / I move” (148). Delphine imagines that the poem is about Cecile's inability to stay put. Nevertheless, it is clear to Delphine that Cecile is happy spending time in her house and printing poems in her kitchen. The print comes out lopsided. Cecile claims that it’s a waste of paper.
Chapter 24 Summary: “San Francisco Treat”
On the sisters’ third weekend in Oakland, Delphine decides that it’s time for a trip to San Francisco. She convinces Cecile to give the girls money for their trip. On their way to the bus stop, the sisters run into Hirohito, who wants to show them a trick on his go-kart. Delphine is just as interested in watching Hirohito as Vonetta, but she won’t admit it out loud. After watching him do his trick, the girls continue walking to the bus stop.
All three girls are excited to have an adventure in San Francisco and to leave “poor and black Oakland” (156). As the bus leaves Oakland, Fern exclaims that she sees something, but she refuses to tell her sisters what it is.
Chapter 25 Summary: “Wish We Had a Camera”
When the girls get off the bus in San Francisco, they see a lot of white hippies. After responding to the hippies’ slogans with black power slogans, the sisters go window shopping in Chinatown. There, Delphine is frightened when several German-speaking tourists try to take their picture. The girls leave Chinatown and take a cable car to the wharf near the Golden Gate Bridge. Delphine—not for the first time—wishes that she had a camera to capture everything she sees. The girls look at the bridge through a telescope, and Delphine loses herself for a moment before remembering that it is her job to look after her sisters.
When the girls step into a shop to buy souvenirs, the shop owner racially profiles them. They leave after telling the owner what they learned at the center: to demand that their civil rights be respected. They buy their souvenirs—postcards—at another shop farther down the wharf.
On the girls’ trip back to Oakland, Delphine realizes that she’s glad they’re leaving San Francisco because, as an African American, she feels more comfortable and less out of place in Oakland. The girls stop at Ming's to pick up some takeout for dinner. They arrive at Cecile's house just in time to see police officers arresting Cecile and two Black Panthers.
Chapters 22-25 Analysis
In addition to revealing a more childlike side of Delphine, Williams-Garcia uses these chapters to flesh out the novel's historical setting.
Delphine struggles to maintain her personal relationships at this point in the novel. She acts more like a bully than a mother when she harshly rebukes Vonetta for valuing attention more than another, hypothetical child. Delphine also flounders in her attempts to forge a mother-daughter bond with Cecile after her mother invites her to work the printing press. Without proper guidance from Cecile, Delphine fails to develop a meaningful bond with her mother or to successfully print one of Cecile's poems.
Delphine finally gives in to her desire for adventure by going on a trip to San Francisco with her sisters. During the trip, Delphine experiences a few, brief moments when she feels content to be a child. One such moment occurs when she feels relieved after leaving the oppressive atmosphere of Oakland. Another moment occurs when she stands on the wharf next to the Golden Gate Bridge and feels a sense of wonder.
The girls’ trip to San Francisco also sheds light on the novel’s historical setting. Delphine has no qualms about telling a souvenir shop owner that she will not tolerate his racism, which is an example of the strength even child activists are capable of. When the girls arrive in San Francisco, they encounter a flower girl and a lot of white hippies, who demonstrate that a countercultural movement was thriving on the other side of the bay.
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By Rita Williams-Garcia
