The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
After watching Selma together my favorite librarian suddenly remembered this book to recommend. She described Christopher Paul Curtis as a Gary Schmidt-like author (another of our absolute favorites), and he certainly displayed that same ability to transport the reader into the inner life of a child, this one being Kenny, a middle-child of a Michigan-living African American family in 1963 America. The first portion of the book consists of getting to know each member of the family before the big brother, “juvenile delinquent” (ie. teenager) Byron, goes a few steps too far. The whole family takes a road-trip vacation to Grandma in Birmingham, Alabama. In the short amount of the story remaining Curtis tells the story with a powerful one-two punch. The jab establishes a dramatic groundwork that could have been an end to the story itself. Then comes the hook, building on that groundwork with a follow-up that took my breath away as it drew together the reality of the characters Curtis has written us with the stunning finality of history – and then, in marvelous denouement, healing is made possible through pain, uncertainty, and a definite touch of inspiration.
Great as the story is on its own merit, it is made all the better by Levar Burton’s sometimes soothing, sometimes hilarious, sometimes sobering reading of the audio.
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