The Watson's Go to Birmingham introduces us to 10 year old Kenny and his loving, but crazy family. Byron is the oldest and has some behavioral issues, Kenny (the narrator) is the middle child, and Joetta is the baby and only girl in the family. Along with their mom and dad, the "Weird Watsons," as they call themselves go on a trip to Birmingham to visit their grandmother. This story is set in 1963, during the heated Civil Rights movement. The trip is all fun and games on the way down from Michigan, but once they get to Birmingham, the Watson's find out just how intense the Civil Rights movement really is.
This was a well written book about an African American family during the 1960's. It's comedic, but also tragic. I would love to use this in my classroom, especially to help introduce the students to the Civil Rights movement. It gives the reader a feel of how prejudice the south really was during the 1960's.
South Carolina State Standard
Standard 7-1 The student will read and comprehend a variety of literary texts in print and nonprint forms.
Indicator 7-1.4 Analyze an author's development of the conflict and individual characters as either static, dynamic, round, or flat in a given literary text.
The students will use a graphic organizer to analyze the characters and label them as static, dynamic, round, or flat. Then the student will write a paragraph on which character they relate to the most in their writing journals.
www.bookrags.com
www.randomhouse.com
www.youtube.com (great videos related to the book as well as the Civil Rights movement)
This is one of my favorite videos. It's a great way to tie the book into a social studies/history class.
http://youtu.be/eGoP6TGa7ig (may be graphic for younger viewers)
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