The Watsons Go to Birmingham
by Paul Curtis
The
book is based in Flint, Michigan, with the narrator, Kenny, introducing
his family in a cold house on the couch huddled up together, the "Weird
Watsons'". His family includes his dad, his mom, older brother Byron,
nicknamed By, and their younger sister Joetta, nicknamed Joey. This
section is largely a description of the Watsons' family life: Byron
kissing his reflection in a car mirror in January and freezing his lips
to the chilled glass, Kenny's friend LJ stealing many of Kenny's toy
dinosaurs, the countrified new kids at school, and Byron's sliding into
friendship with the bad element in town. It is this last episode that
prompts the main conflict in the story, as Byron's behavior worsens.
Ultimately he is caught again playing with matches despite having been
warned repeatedly against doing just this.
At
this point, the family decides Byron should live with his Grandma Sands
in Alabama for the Summer and if things don't work out he'll stay there
for the next school year. It is, however, when the grandmother's church
is bombed that the family decides to return home, with Byron, in an
attempt to avoid explaining the full implications of what has happened
to the children.
