The Watsons go to Birmingham: 1963
Average reader
10 years and older
by Christopher Paul Curtis
Not illustrated
224 pages
Delacorte Books for Young Readers
nineteen ninety five
Newberry’s Honor Book
The Newbery Medal is awarded annually by the American Library Association to the author of the most distinguished contribution to American children’s literature. This was Christopher Paul Curtis’ first book and was awarded a Newbery Honor. His second book, Bud, Not Buddy (Delacorte Books for Young Readers; 1999), won the Newbery Medal. The man can write. Its characters are genuine and easy to identify, and its storytelling is rich and vivid.
This book is fun. Laugh out loud funny. These are some of the chapter titles.
“Swedish creams and wellness cheese”
“Every Chihuahua in America is lining up to give Byron a bite.”
“I know Winnie’s evil twin brother, the Wool Pooh.”
This book is sad too. The heart of the story is the 1963 bombing of a black church in Birmingham, Alabama, an atrocity in which 4 girls were killed. Although none of the Watsons are physically injured, our narrator, Kenny, is fundamentally changed by the event.
The Watsons are an African-American family of five living in Flint, Michigan, in the early 1960s. Dad is from Flint, Mom was born and raised in Alabama. Byron is the eldest son at thirteen. He’s vain, relentlessly teases his younger brother Kenny, and always gets in trouble. Ten-year-old Kenny is smart, funny, and an avid reader. Joetta, or Joey, the youngest daughter and the only girl, is very protective of her older brothers and constantly worries about the problems Byron causes. When I was little, if my older brothers got into trouble, I would cry and beg my mother not to punish them, even when they were being punished for something they had done to me. I never wanted there to be problems, I always wanted to keep the peace. That’s Joetta everywhere.
The always rowdy Byron has taken his mom too far and she makes the decision to send him to Birmingham, Alabama. He will live with his mother, who will straighten him out or kill him. So the whole family goes on a road trip to Alabama.
The title of the book comes from the notebook that Mom prepares for the trip. She calculated daily mileage, took meal and bathroom breaks into account, and produced a hotel budget. Dad is very excited about the road trip and buys an Ultra-Glide for the car. The Ultra-Glide was a turntable that was attached to your car’s dash so you could play records in your car. I have looked for it. It was real!
Kenny spends his time in the car imagining who will win the impending battle between Byron and Grandma Sands. It would be “something like if Godzilla meets King Kong, or Frankenstein meets Dracula, or like when the champion fighter Bobo Brasil meets the Sheik.” But once she sets her eyes on Grandma Sands, who “looked just like Mom if someone shrunk her five sizes and sucked all the juice out of her,” she thinks Byron will destroy the old woman.
It is September but it is hot in Birmingham. A heat that children have never experienced before and one that they are sure no human could really survive. In an effort to get relief from the oppressive heat, the children head to a local swimming hole. Despite Grandma Sands’ warnings about eddies (which Kenny mistakes for “Wool Pooh” due to his heavy southern accent), Kenny is determined to swim in the forbidden area. Byron and Joey leave Kenny behind to go to the public place to swim and Kenny soon finds himself in real trouble. He dives into the water and comes face to face with Wool Pooh (who looks nothing like Winnie). Just when Kenny thinks the Wool Pooh will take him forever, Byron dives into the water and saves him from drowning.
The morning of the church bombing, Joey has already left for Sunday school when Kenny hears the noise. Actually, you feel it more than you hear it. Word soon gets out that the local church, the church where Joey is, has been bombed. The family rushes to the scene and Kenny walks to the demolished and smoking church. He finds a shiny black shoe among the rubble and is convinced that it is Joey’s. He’s sure she’s dead. Stunned, Kenny returns home, alone, with his shiny black shoe in his pocket. When Joey appears in her room, happy and completely unaware of the tragedy, he thinks she is an angel and refuses to look at her. Joey, irritated and uneasy at Kenny’s behavior, grabs the shiny black shoe and tosses it at his head. Kenny finally looks at her and sees that she is unharmed and that she wears both shoes. Then he learns that she was too hot in the church basement and went out on the porch to get some air, escaping the tragedy.
There is an interesting mystical connection between Kenny’s near-drowning and Joetta’s near death, but I want to let the reader find out.
The Birmingham tragedy prompts Mom to reconsider the idea of leaving her oldest son behind, and the whole family returns to Flint together. Kenny, however, has clearly changed. He is not at all himself and spends his time in a secret hideaway, reliving the events in Birmingham and hoping that all bad memories of what happened will magically disappear.
It is Byron who discovers where Kenny has been hiding and Byron who finally communicates with him, in the sweetest, most patient and caring way. No matter how many times I read this book, or the speech Byron gives Kenny about how everything is going to be okay, I always read it through tears.
Although this is a family living in a very different time, you can still relate to its problems, share its joys, and feel its pain. If you buy this book for someone else, I recommend that you read it yourself first.