The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963
Christopher Paul Curtis (1995)
“A family road trip turns into a collision with history — and one boy loses his innocence to a Sunday-morning bombing.”
Character Analysis
Ten years old, bookish, slightly lonely outside the family, and an absolutely reliable chronicler of everything around him — except his own emotional state, which he avoids until it becomes unavoidable. Kenny's narration is the novel's greatest achievement: a child's voice capable of carrying a novel about history, race, and loss. His use of the Wool Pooh as an image for death and evil is the most sophisticated piece of involuntary symbolism in middle-grade fiction — Kenny doesn't know he's being metaphorical. He just knows what the Wool Pooh looks like.
Warm, informal, self-aware narration. Uses exaggeration for comic effect. Becomes spare and direct when processing fear or grief.