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Jan 23, 2015LibrLdyMapleValley rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963 is the unforgettable first novel written by Christopher Paul Curtis. It is a Newbery Award Honor and Coretta Scott King Award Honor book which is quite a pile of kudos for a first novel. It's one of those books that will linger in your memory for years. It's funny, heartwarming and then in the final pages it is heart wrenching. With all this heavy duty honor and glory one might wonder if kids would appreciate the story and I can assure you they do. It's just one of those books that did everything exactly right. What makes this book work are the characters. So let's meet the Watsons or, as the neighborhood people call them... the Weird Watsons. And they earned that name. There's our brilliant ten year old narrator Kenny who shares his insights on his family. There's Byron who "just turned 13 so he was officially a teenage juvenile delinquent..." These two create a lot of comic/tragic energy as the story progresses. Joetta is their baby sister and hapless witness to most of their disasters. Mom and Dad are quirky, creative, and often exasperated. The chapter headings give you a good idea of what kind of trouble the boys tend to get into usually with Kenny as the victim. Chapter five for instance is "Nazi Parachutes Attack America and Get Shot Down over the Flint River by Captain Byron Watson and His Flamethrower of Death." It involves Byron, matches, a toilet and toy soldiers. Eventually Byron's juvenile delinquent ways force his parents to play hardball and he's taken to his Grandmother's house in Birmingham. That's when this family that we have fallen in love with gets wrapped up in one of the darkest events of the Civil Rights era. Because we are so firmly attached to the Watson's we walk into the events of 1963 and feel the intensity and pain just as they do. This sense of deep empathy is what makes this book stay firmly fixed in the minds of those who have read it. Read it and you will understand why Christopher Paul Curtis is one of the best authors writing for kids today.