The Watsons Go to Birmingham

by Christopher Paul Curtis

This book is hilarious. This is a very popular book and my co-worker recommended it to me. I learned that this book is a part of our 7th grade curriculum in our district. I promised myself that I would read it during break and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The setting is in Flint, MI. The Watson family are hilarious and full of great adventures. I love reading about the parents trying to do their very best in taming their oldest son, Byron who is officially the "delinquent" of the family. Bryon is a bright, witty and loving older brother who is great at causing trouble. Kenny is the younger brother who is the narrator. He is young, inquisitive, bright yet naive of the harsh realities of African Americans in 1963. Kenny learns more about this when they travel to Birmingham to visit grandma. This is during the same time as the Birmingham church bombing that killed 4 young girls. This book is historical fiction. While it touches on difficult circumstances and historical events of the South, it bring in a lot of biographical details that allows you to fall in love with the characters. Kenny finds beauty and life in his family. His family keeps him pushing on.

My critique of this book is that it does little to analyze the racism that existed during that time period in the North. It also does little to address how the main character can feel empowered to resist against white supremacy and bigotry. Too much of our education has been spent seeing racism as something in history that only the southern part of our country dealt with. It doesn't give room to critically think about the systemic problems in our country. It also does not allow readers to think of practical solutions to how we address the problems. At the end of the book, the reader only felt sympathy for Kenny's experience and smiled that he has a strong, supportive family. I am not quite satisfied with this conclusion. Although, I can see how many people can be because this conclusion does not aggressively challenge the status quo.

Lexile: 1000
Grade Level: 5.6

One Crazy Summer

by Rita Williams-Garcia
Over winter break I read this book wondering if I should read it with my students. It was highly recommended to me by my school librarian. "One Crazy Summer" is a historical fiction novel that takes place in 1969 in Oakland, CA. The narrator is Delphine, the oldest sister. She and her two younger sisters travel to California to live with their mother for the summer. Delphine faces a lot of internal conflict as she deals with putting the pieces together with why her mother left them. Even though she is eleven, she asks like she is 30, having to take on the role of mother for ther two sisters. Their mother, Cecile takes the children in but does not want anything to do with the girls. The girls call their mom "crazy". They discover that their mom works for the Black Panther Party. Mom sends the girls to attend the breakfast program and summer camp that is not their traditional form of education. I loved this book because the characters focus on the roles of children and women and their role in the Black Panther Party. Rita Williams-Garcia has won a number of awards for this book. It is the "new hot shit" on my list.

I do plan to read this book with my class. I like it because the book really focuses on empowerment and looks at how one organization (though highly demonized in our history textbooks) took care of their own community. I will use the topic of controversial Black Panthers to my advantage as an opportunity for students to think critically. I will use primary and secondary sources about the Black Panthers to compare, contrast, analyze and evaluate sources for bias/objectiveness; facts/opinions. Though the reading level is lower, supplementing non-fiction materials to help us better understand the historical period will provide an enriching experience for my students.

Grade Level: 4.6
Lexile: 750