![]() ![]() We were eleven years old at the same time. Right on! It all rang so true that, although Rita and I had not yet met, I felt as though we had grown up together. In fact, I could tell how old Rita was because we had grown up in exactly the same era. Who knew she could write so well for middle-grade readers? And who knew she was so devastatingly funny? I laughed aloud at least once on every page while I was reading the book. It was so different from Rita’s earlier books. So when I first read One Crazy Summer, I was surprised. ![]() ![]() Heavy subjects, even for young adult literature. Subsequent books dealt with serious subjects: rape, female genital mutilation, teen violence. Fast Talk, for example, takes place over the summer between Denzel Watson’s senior year of high school and freshman year of college. Blue Tights was followed by Fast Talk on a Slow Track (1991) and Like Sisters on the Homefront (1995), two books that were unusual in their time because they featured older teens. It stood out among all the YA novels published in 1988 for its honest and realistic depiction of a working-class teen. Prior to that, though, I had known her through her books for many years, starting with her first novel, Blue Tights. ![]() I first met Rita Williams-Garcia three years ago, soon after One Crazy Summer was published. Horning, Rita Williams-Garcia, and Rosemary Brosnan. ![]()
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