(Book #4) In August, I convinced the girls to read a book written for young readers, One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams Garcia. In addition to having read so many books of this kind with my daughter, I started reading along with Mock Newbery groups online around 2007 and sending all the books to my niece, Emily who is a teacher and reading specialist. We have joked that a Newbery winning book is worth more if you purchased it before it won the Newbery sticker on the cover and Emily has about eight such books in her possession, more if you count Honor books.
The book is about three young girls whose father sends them to California to visit the mother who abandoned them. Their mother serves them Chinese take-out most evenings and that is where Melissa, our hostess, took her cue to serve us (delivered) Chinese food. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the book and Melissa still counts it as one of her favorites of all we’ve read. It received my Cried Like a Baby rating for the moment when the mother tells her side of the story of why/how she was able to leave the girls behind.