The Watsons go to Birmingham by Christopher Paul Curtis is a historical fiction novel set in 1963 Flint, Michigan and later Birmingham, Alabama. The beginning of the story starts off at the Watsons house in freezing Flint. Then their grandma’s house in Birmingham. At the time Birmingham was a very scary place to be if you were black, and was a lot more racist than the Watson’s home in Flint. The main characters are brothers Kenny, and Byron. Kenny is ten years old and is a exceptional student, but is unfortunately bullied He stays out of trouble more often than not and is a pretty responsible kid. His brother Byron is the exact opposite. He rarely goes to school and when he does his is often portrayed as the bully. He’s not real bright considering
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The action starts once Ms Watson catches Byron played with matches and lighting things on fire, even though being warned not to many times. So they Watsons decided his punishment would be to stay with his Grandma Sands in Birmingham, Alabama, for the summer and possibly the next school year, to whip him into shape. A few days the Watsons loaded up the “Brown Bomber” (Their nickname for their car” and headed to Alabama. The first two things they noticed when they got to Birmingham was the racism and how much hotter the weather was. The first time Kenny experienced extreme racism was when their Grandma Sands’s church was bombed (Which happened to be the 16th St Baptist Church). Kenny thought he saw his sister in the church so he ran in and saw the dead children and he ran all the way back to his grandma’s house. In the end so watsons decided to take their kids home early not wanting to explain the full details of the bombing.
My favorite part of the story was when Byron got his tongue stuck to the Brown Bomber’s mirror. It was funny because in a matter of moments Byron went from tough guy to having his face stuck to a frozen car mirror. They tried to pour hot water on the mirror to make the ice melt, but instead it just created another sheet of ice. I would give this novel an eight out of ten. It has great placed humor, but the end was a little confusing and slow at the end. Overall
The action starts once Ms Watson catches Byron played with matches and lighting things on fire, even though being warned not to many times. So they Watsons decided his punishment would be to stay with his Grandma Sands in Birmingham, Alabama, for the summer and possibly the next school year, to whip him into shape. A few days the Watsons loaded up the “Brown Bomber” (Their nickname for their car” and headed to Alabama. The first two things they noticed when they got to Birmingham was the racism and how much hotter the weather was. The first time Kenny experienced extreme racism was when their Grandma Sands’s church was bombed (Which happened to be the 16th St Baptist Church). Kenny thought he saw his sister in the church so he ran in and saw the dead children and he ran all the way back to his grandma’s house. In the end so watsons decided to take their kids home early not wanting to explain the full details of the bombing.
My favorite part of the story was when Byron got his tongue stuck to the Brown Bomber’s mirror. It was funny because in a matter of moments Byron went from tough guy to having his face stuck to a frozen car mirror. They tried to pour hot water on the mirror to make the ice melt, but instead it just created another sheet of ice. I would give this novel an eight out of ten. It has great placed humor, but the end was a little confusing and slow at the end. Overall