The Watsons Go to Birmingham--1963

This is one of the funniest, and saddest, books ever. When Kenny starts telling the story, it’s dead winter in Flint. Michigan. Cold enough to make your spit freeze. Momma, who grew up in Alabama, begins yearning for the South. By reputation, Momma’s momma is the strictest, meanest grandma ever. Kenny - who’s never met her - decides Grandma Sands must look like a troll. Dad and Momma decide that Grandma Sands is the perfect person to straighten out big brother Byron, who shows signs of turning into a juvenile delinquent. So... Join the Watsons. Get in their car (also… show more.

This book is an oldie but a goodie. Set in 1963 and told through the point of view of nine-year-old Kenny, it tells the story of a black family from Flint, Michigan who travel to Birmingham because Kenny’s brother needs his Southern grandma to straighten him out. I grew up in the sixties and my father’s family lived in Flint, Michigan, so I immediately connected to the book. During their time in Birmingham, Kenny witnesses the aftermath of a bombing at a nearby church. The actual bombing death of the four girls at the 16th Street Baptist Church in… show more.

It amuses me that I’m now old enough to have lived at a time young readers now would consider “historical”. Growing up in Canada in the 1950s and ’60s, the Civil Rights movement in the States seemed distant but, in coming years as I read books about it, literature made it immediate. None more so than this chronicle of the journey a somewhat madcap family makes from their home in Michigan to Birmingham where Grandma Sands lives. The story is narrated by fourth-grader Kenny but his older brother Byron, who attracts trouble like static electricity, figures prominently. Much of the… show more.