Birmingham, 1963

Exquisitely understated design lends visual potency to a searing poetic evocation of the Birmingham church bombing of 1963. The unnamed fictional narrator relates the events of “[t]he year I turned ten,” this refrain introducing such domestic commonplaces as her first sip of coffee and “doz[ing] on Mama’s shoulder” at church. She juxtaposes these against the momentous events of the year: the Children’s March in Birmingham for which the narrator missed school, the March on Washington and the mass meetings at church that she found so soporific. The same matter-of-fact tone continues to relate what happened “[t]he day I turned ten:” “10:22 a.m. The clock stopped, and Jesus’ face / Was blown out of the only stained-glass show more window / Left standing. . . . ” Documentary gray dominates the palette, the only color angry streaks of red that evoke shattered window frames. The poems appear on recto accompanied by images of childhood—patent-leather shoes, pencils, bobby socks—while full-bleed archival photographs face them on verso. It’s a gorgeous memorial to the four killed on that horrible day, and to the thousands of children who braved violence to help change the world. (Poetry. 10-14)

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Such a beautiful, yet heart breaking book. I would definitely use this book in a classroom to teach the significance and despair that came along with the civil rights movement. Especially because this is often a hard topic to explain--it is sometimes difficult to have students empathize or picture themselves in this time, it is also hard for them to understand how many innocent lives and futures were stolen as a result of pointless hate. The poems at the end of the text of the little girls that were killed in the Birmingham bombings communicate that topic beautifully. They show what the girls could have done, what they wanted to do, and how innocent they truly were.

I’m very fortunate that I came across this amazing book yet very sad that this ever happened. It is a part of the American history that is always being hidden. Racism and terrorism have no religion and no color. This book tells the story of the coward church bombing in Birmingham Alabama in 1963. The story is being told from a fictional point of view. I will definitely encourage any teacher to teach this book during a social study class and ELA class.

Weatherford contrasts the narrator's everyday story with the tragic events of that particular day to powerful effect. A reader cannot read this book of poignant poems without feeling the pain of racial hatred. The memorial poems at the end, one to each of the four murdered girls, will bring tears to your eyes.

This book would be a great inclusion in a lesson about the Civil Rights movement. Not only does it shows the cruelties the African-American community had to face, it showed specifically the church bombing that occurred when nineteen sticks of dynamite were planted under the church's steps. It is a very informative book when looking into the Civil Rights movement, and the atrocities that were done against this community of people.

A powerful poem about the Civil Rights Movement, specifically, the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Told by a young, fictional narrator, amidst actual photographs of the time, we get a personal feel for what it was like to grow up an African American in this time.

The perfect companion to "The Watsons Go To Birmingham 1963" by Christopher Paul Curtis. While the narrator of this free verse poem is fictional, all of the other characters and events, including pictures are real. This work vividly describes the horror of the church bombing that killed four young girls in 1963. Very moving.