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