50 Fun Facts About The Watsons Go to Birmingham

While scraping ice off the family car, which part of Byron Watson freezes to the side mirror?

His lips stick fast because he has been kissing his own reflection. Hot water only freezes on the glass, so his mother finally yanks him free.

What nickname, shared with a famous boxing champion, do the Watsons give their ageing family car?

The Brown Bomber gets new parts, a deep clean and a pine-tree air freshener before the long drive south. Joe Louis, the original, held the heavyweight title from 1937 to 1949.

How does Daniel Watson punish Byron for coming home with the straightened hairdo he was forbidden to get?

He shaves his head, leaving Byron completely bald and furious. The stunt is the last straw: soon afterwards his parents phone Alabama and start planning the trip.

What does Byron Watson throw from an apple tree that accidentally kills a bird on a telephone wire?

A cookie with pink frosting does it, one of a bagful Byron had charged to the family's grocery account. The tough guy is sick with guilt and quietly gives the bird a grave.

Which surprise gadget does Daniel Watson fit to the family car's dashboard before the drive to Birmingham?

A record player called the Ultra-Glide is the surprise, built not to skip when the car hits a bump. His wife storms off over the cost, then comes back out to listen.

Which natural hazard nearly drowns Kenny Watson at a forbidden swimming hole in Alabama?

A whirlpool is what Grandma Sands warns of, but her drawl turns the word into Wool Pooh. Byron then invents a monster to fit the name, the evil twin of Winnie-the-Pooh.

When Wilona Watson tries to burn Byron's fingers for playing with matches, how does Joetta stop her?

She blows out each match before it can touch him, again and again, until their mother gives up. The punishment is handed over to Dad instead.

Back in Michigan after the Birmingham bombing, where does a shaken Kenny Watson hide for hours each day?

Behind the couch is where the family's sick pets crawl to recover, and Byron once said the spot was magic. Kenny waits there for the same cure.

Besides being the teachers' favourite reader, what gets Kenny Watson teased at Clark Elementary?

His lazy eye draws so much teasing that Byron teaches him a trick: look at people sideways when they talk, so the eye is harder to spot.

Members of which group planted the 1963 Birmingham church bomb that the Watsons' story builds towards?

The Ku Klux Klan planted dynamite under the church steps, killing four girls. It took until 1977 for the first of the men responsible to be convicted.

The Watsons live in which Michigan car-making city, also the hometown of author Christopher Paul Curtis?

Flint is where the whole family was born except Wilona, who moved up from Alabama to marry and never stops complaining about the northern cold.

Kenny, narrator of The Watsons Go to Birmingham, gives his own family which adjective as a nickname?

Weird is his word: he calls them the Weird Watsons from the first chapter, when it is so cold that they wear scarves inside the house.

Who is Byron Watson's best friend and partner in crime, a fellow bully of the younger boys?

Buphead helps Byron toss Kenny into a snowbank in the name of blizzard survival training. He is also the one who gives Byron his forbidden hairdo.

Which toys do Kenny Watson and his friend Rufus Fry play with almost every night after school?

Plastic dinosaurs are their armies: the boys stage battles of Americans against Nazis, and Rufus never minds being the Nazis.

What does school bully Larry Dunn steal from Kenny Watson and then stain a darker colour to hide the theft?

Leather gloves are a rarity in town, where most children make do with cheap mittens. Dark smears left in the snow give Larry away.

The climax of The Watsons Go to Birmingham is based on the 1963 bombing of which real place of worship?

16th Street Baptist Church had been a rallying point for civil rights marches all spring, the place where students trained for the Children's Crusade. The bomb went off on Sunday 15 September.

The Watsons Go to Birmingham – 1963 was a 1996 runner-up, or Honor Book, for which American children's book prize?

The Newbery Medal itself went to The Midwife's Apprentice that year. Curtis won it outright four years later with his second novel, the first African American man to do so.

What going-away present does neighbour Mrs. Davidson give Joetta Watson before the trip to Birmingham?

A little angel is the gift, chosen because the neighbour says it reminds her of Joetta. Joetta thanks her politely, then hides it in her sock drawer because it is white.

What drives Joetta Watson out onto the church porch shortly before the bomb goes off?

The heat inside sends her to the porch, where she sees a boy she takes for Kenny waving from over the road. She chases him all the way home and so escapes the blast.

What does Kenny Watson pull from the rubble of the bombed church, believing it belongs to Joetta?

A shiny black shoe like hers is what he tugs free, sure the Wool Pooh is gripping the other end. He carries it home in a daze, only to find Joetta there wearing both of her own.

Christopher Paul Curtis followed his Watsons debut with which novel about a runaway orphan in the Great Depression?

Bud, Not Buddy drew on the author's own grandfathers, one a bandleader and the other a Negro league pitcher. Its hero is ten years old, the same age as Kenny.

Which civil rights leader spoke at the funeral of three girls killed in the Birmingham church bombing?

Martin Luther King spoke before the burials, with some 800 clergy of all races in the congregation. No city official came to the service.

Thirteen-year-old Byron Watson rules Clark Elementary because he is still stuck in which year of school?

Sixth grade is as far as Byron has got, having flunked at least once. Kenny dreads the day his brother moves up to junior high and takes his protection with him.

Rufus Fry, the new boy Kenny Watson befriends on the school bus, has just moved from which state?

Arkansas gives Rufus the country accent and worn clothes that make him the bus's new target. Kenny first sees him as a saviour, someone to draw the bullies away.

Byron Watson tells Joetta that which vehicles pick up frozen Southerners outside their house each morning?

Garbage trucks, he claims, haul the bodies away before anyone wakes. The fib works: Joetta stops complaining about the layers of winter clothes her mother makes her wear.

What is Byron Watson setting alight when his mother catches him with matches again?

Toilet-paper parachutes are props in a film he is pretending to shoot, each one lit and dropped into the bowl. The constant flushing is what brings his mother upstairs.

Byron Watson hates signing for groceries at Mitchell's store because he assumes the family is on what?

Welfare is what he fears people will think, though signing only means Dad settles the bill on payday. Byron soon sees the upside and starts charging treats for himself.

Which hairstyle of the era does Byron Watson come home with, hidden under a hat, against his parents' orders?

A conk meant straightening the hair with a harsh lye-based relaxer. Byron's comes out stiff and reddish, and his mother greets it by renaming him Señor Byroncito.

At the family's first Ohio rest stop, what do the Watson children find when they look for the toilets?

An outhouse, a wooden seat over a deep hole, horrifies Kenny and Byron. Their parents laugh that Byron had better get used to it, because Grandma Sands has one too.

Wilona Watson plans a first overnight stop in which Ohio city, only for Daniel to drive straight past?

Cincinnati was meant to end day one of her careful three-day plan. Daniel had secretly decided to drive the whole way to Alabama without stopping to sleep.

What does Daniel Watson joke he fears getting hooked on if the family listens to Southern radio?

Hillbilly music is all the Southern stations play, he says, which is his excuse for the car's costly new gadget. When it jams on the drive, he tunes in anyway and jokes about renaming the children.

Which Coasters hit is Kenny Watson's favourite, the one he chooses every time his turn comes round?

Yakety Yak was a 1958 number one on the R&B chart, written by Leiber and Stoller. On the way south the car's new gadget jams on it, repeating one line over and over.

Grandma Sands forbids the Watson children to swim at which spot, where a little boy once drowned?

Collier's Landing has a warning sign saying six lives have been lost there. Kenny decides the owner only put it up to keep the lake to himself, and wades in.

Which animal is Kenny Watson reaching for when the deep water of an Alabama lake drags him under?

A turtle lures him past the drop-off after he tires of grabbing at small fish in the shallows. Byron, who had refused to come, turns up just in time to drag him out.

Which kind of work, brought home by his son, made Christopher Paul Curtis send the Watsons to Birmingham?

A poem did it: Dudley Randall's Ballad of Birmingham, which his son read aloud to him while he was drafting. Until then the family had been bound for somewhere else entirely.

Daniel Watson first blames the blast that shakes Grandma Sands's house on what, before the truth arrives?

A sonic boom is his guess, once he has checked that Byron is not to blame for the noise. Then a neighbour brings word that the church Joetta went to that morning has been bombed.

What does Byron Watson show off in the bathroom mirror while coaxing Kenny out of hiding?

His chin hairs, the first he has grown, are the excuse to get Kenny in front of the mirror. Seeing his own sad face there, Kenny finally cries and tells Byron what he saw.

In Christopher Paul Curtis's prize-winning first draft, the Watsons were driving to which state instead of Alabama?

Florida was in the original title, which took first place in a Hopwood Awards contest. Switching states gave the story its ending.

Before his Watsons novel, Christopher Paul Curtis spent thirteen years doing which job at a General Motors plant?

Hanging car doors on Buicks, fifty pounds or more apiece, filled his ten-hour shifts. He and a workmate took turns covering the line, and he wrote during his half-hour breaks.

Which cable network premiered the 2013 television film of The Watsons Go to Birmingham?

Hallmark Channel aired the film fifty years after the bombing it depicts. Its producers worked with the Southern Poverty Law Center on classroom materials to go with it.

Daniel Watson nicknames Wilona's old beau Moses Henderson after which food, saying his skull is shaped like one?

A hambone is the joke, and Dad acts it out until the whole family is laughing. He tells the children they came close to having Hambone Henderson for a father.

Why does Wilona Watson cover her mouth with her hand whenever she is about to smile?

A gap in her teeth embarrasses her, so the hand goes up when she tries to hide a laugh at her husband's teasing about Birmingham.

In chapter one of The Watsons Go to Birmingham, Joetta tearfully compares Byron to which figure from Greek myth?

Narcissus, or Nar-sissy as she says it, stared at himself for so long that he starved. Joetta is in tears, sure her brother will meet the same end.

As a second grader, Kenny Watson was shown off reading which poet's work to a class of older pupils?

Langston Hughes was the reading a teacher chose to show Byron's class how well a small boy could manage it. Being the teachers' pet only earns Kenny more teasing.

In which state's mountains does Byron Watson scare Kenny, and himself, at a pitch-dark rest stop on the drive south?

Tennessee is where the family finally pulls over, high in the Appalachians, after Dad drives on past the planned motel. Byron's talk of hostile locals frightens him as much as his brother.

LJ Jones steals many of Kenny Watson's toys after talking him into doing what during a war game?

Burying them was LJ's idea for the casualties of a pretend radiation war. Kenny forgot about the ones underground, and LJ came back to dig them up.

Which pink-frosted treats does Byron Watson secretly charge to the family's account at Mitchell's?

Swedish Cremes come by the bagful once Byron realises that signing for food needs no money. He buys Kenny's silence by sharing them, which makes his brother an accomplice.

Which Drifters song, known in the family as Wilona Watson's own, does Daniel play first to win her round?

Under the Boardwalk is a small slip in the novel's timeline: the Drifters did not release it until 1964, the year after the family's trip.

Wilona Watson is taken aback to find Grandma Sands sharing her Birmingham home with which man?

Mr. Robert is her dearest friend, Grandma Sands says firmly, reminding her daughter that Grandpa has been gone for nearly twenty years. He takes the children to the best fishing spots.

Grandma Sands's friend tells the Watson boys that which animal once dragged his hunting dog underwater?

A raccoon pulled the dog under a lake during a hunt, and its owner saved it. Toddy was once the best coon dog in Alabama, he says, but both of them are too old to hunt now.