A review by lattelibrarian
The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis

5.0

I read this years ago when I was a kid, and rereading it now was so nice. Clearly, I didn’t remember much of it, which made me even more glad that I got to read it once more. Kenny is such a humorous narrator, and the escapades he and Byron get into are so, so hilarious…until they become hugely serious. The amount of growth that the Watsons go through is incredible, and it’s done in a way that lends a lot of humor to the harsh reality of the time. Even today, it’s still fresh, genuine, and utterly heartbreaking.

And now to get a little grad school on y’all…this book offers SO many opportunities in the children’s lit field, from ethnic studies, to gender and masculinity studies, to humor studies…it appears to have it all, and not many books can say that. I mean, in comparison to The Watsons, how can other books hold up in representing a family so rooted in love and hilarity?

Review cross-listed here!