Fresh original voice and great storytelling. A pleasure to read.

In a sometimes episodic depiction of a Northern black family in the 60s, Christopher Paul Curtis has managed to create probably one of the funniest and saddest young adult books of the 20th century.

First published in 1998 (and republished by Laurel Leaf in 2000), The Watsons Go to Birmingham 1963 is more than a recounting of a family trip, despite the title. The book starts out with the various dealings of its protagonist and precocious 10-year old narrator, Kenny Watson, with his older brother (the troubled Byron), his younger sister (the sweet and sometimes annoying Joetta), and his parents.

Kenny's is a voice not easily forgotten. Charming and hilarious, he is probably one of my favorite fictional narrators. All that's needed to get an idea of the type of voice he possesses is to list some of his chapter titles:

1. And You Wonder Why We Get Called the Weird Watsons
4. Froze-Up Southern Folks
7. Every Chihuahua in America Lines Up to Take a Bite out of Byron
13. I Meet Winnie's Evil Twin Brother, the Wool Pooh

When Kenny's older brother plays one too many pranks and gets in trouble one too many times, the parents discuss in hushed whispers, and finally in boisterous somewhat staged voices, their intentions to take Byron to Birmingham to get disciplined and a good hard dose of reality living under the belligerent strictness of their Grandma Sands.

Their mom relating that Grandma Sands "says that that stuff on TV isn't happening around her" (119) is the first hint that all isn't as it is cracked up to be in Birmingham, something that Kenny does not quite understand or realize until it is too late to get the searing images of reality out of his head, or the readers. As Kenny says, their home of Flint is "about two million miles" from Alabama.

Kenny's experience as they make an unscheduled stop in the middle of nowhere, more a frightened reaction to the nervousness experienced by her mom and Byron about the realities of racism (Byron says to Kenny, "they'd hang you now, then eat you later"), is later magnified when he comes across the wreckage of a church bombing (based on Sixteenth Street Baptist Church that was bombed on September 15, 1963) that changes the family's lives forever.

While a bit jarring (such is life, I suppose), the switch from comedy to drama is one that is best rectified through the consistent voice of the narrator, whose voice and experience of the world is utterly convincing, and a great way to deal with very delicate subject matter of racism and children's death.

The delicate subject matter makes me think that parents should read this first before broaching the subject with children, but that this is a good way to bring it into focus (the epilogue gives a historical foundation for looking more into the history of segregation and civil rights).

That being said, the Watsons are a loving and lovable family. Moments of sibling rivalry and Kenny's unique perspective can make you laugh out loud, while the chilling realities seep in and transform the narrative into something that important enough to be shared across classrooms in this country.