Review: The Watsons Go to Birmingham--1963

#7 for the year: The Watsons Go to Birmingham--1963,
by Christopher Paul Curtis

Pages: 210

Date Finished: 03/04/2007

Genre: children's lit

Rating: 7 of 10 (good)

Reason: Teaching it

Thoughts: I knew from the get-go that this book was about the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963. I assumed the actual event would play a much larger part, and while that would've been fine with me, I was equally pleased--and more than a little surprised--to discover that this book actually revolves around a fictional family that makes a trip to Birmingham and unwittinginly stumbles into an historic moment.

The "Weird Watsons" as they're called in their Flint, Michigan neighborhood are endearing and
delightful. Mother, Wilona; father, Daniel; sons, Byron and Kenny; and daughter, Joetta are a tightly knit, fun-loving group until Byron, the oldest of the children, begins to find himself in constant trouble doing, as they say, what little boys do: taking change from his mother's purse, disappearing with friends, pyromania, and generally sulking. After he pushes his mother and father one step too far, they pack up the "Brown Bomber" family car and head to Alabama with plans to leave Byron with his grandmother for the summer.

The story is told through the eyes of Kenny, and one quickly falls in love with his family. The Weird Watsons are an all-American family during a time in American history when African Americans were considered anything but all-American. The normalcy and compassion the family
represent are a lesson for children in themselves, and the fact that the Watsons are largely divorced from the racial politics of the Civil Rights Movement as a result of their residence in Michigan, makes the harsh realities of Birmingham and bigotry all the more powerful and painful to read.

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Book lists make me quiver...

You've probably seen this meme floating 'round the 'net. I know Bookfool and Stephanie have done it (and countless others I read...*waves*). So, I had to do it too.

Look at the list of books below: *Bold the ones you’ve read* Italicize the ones you want to read* Leave blank the ones that you aren’t interested in. If you are reading this (and haven't participated yet), tag, you’re it! I will also be highlighting in red those books that I've read part of. Because the running joke is that I've read part of almost every great book (and a few crappy ones as well).

1. The DaVinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte) (but it was only a few pages left before I had to return it to the library! I swear! I claim this one as read most of the time)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold) (piece of shit)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams) Alternate TBR
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte) (I'm notorious for not finishing this one. I've tried at least 3 times and never get past page 50)
28. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck) (ran out of steam)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks) (one of my former high school students made me)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell) (I don't have a good excuse for not goin back and finishing this one)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)

36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom) (piece of ....)
45. The Bible (Actually, I've read a bunch of the books....never all at once) (you had to expect this one)
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)(for a high school scholarship contest. I think I got 100 pages in and literally threw it at a wall)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)(slogged through it to the very end)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)(petered out, but plan to revisit)
67. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)(I know everyone loves it, but I didn't make it through when I tried. It's still on the shelf, though)
78. The World According to Garp (John Irving)(I love Irving, but the first try never works for me)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte's Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down(Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)(will conquer this one someday)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)(hasn't everyone tried and failed once or twice?)

And generally the italicized "want to reads" are already on my shelves. I have a lot of reading to do!

Sipping: English Breakfast

Watching: Rachael Ray stir shrimp

Douchebags, every one...

Pardon the crass rant ahead...

According to the Urban Dictionary:

douchebag

n. fr. "douche", fr. French, fr. Italian "doccia"

1. An object used for vaginal hygeine.

2. A student or instructor at the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities.

I don't know about that Minnesota thing, but I certainly do know that at my respective university there is an overabundance of douchebags, and if we apply the douchebag sentiment to a verb: douchebaggery. Let's investigate....

This is a douchebag. The real thing. Not exactly what I'm going for.

President Bush. Hmm, much closer to what I'm going for.



Now I think we've hit the nail on the head. Whether we're talking about the douchebaggery of the students in my classes or the ingrates in the registrar's office, this cartoon really captures the essence of the douchebags and their respective douchebaggery.

I have to ask myself what it is about my students that makes them

1) incapable of turning a paper in on time
2) incapable of following a writing prompt
3) incapable of understanding why ignoring the prompt or turning their work in late is inappropriate

Furthermore, I don't understand why

1) the ingrates in the registrar's office can't send a transcript correctly the first time
2) can't send a corrected transcript to one of the schools to which I applied for a PhD
3) they can't answer the phone when I call them to straighten out the mess
4) return my call even after I've firmly but politely requested that they do so

Perhaps the university students eventually end up working on the university staff?