The ordinary interactions and everyday routines of the Watsons, an African American family living in Flint, Michigan, are drastically changed after they go to visit Grandma in Alabama in the summer of 1963.
Nine-year-old Kenny narrates this story about his middle-class, African-American family and their 1963 trip from Flint, Michigan to Birmingham, Alabama. The trip's purpose is two-fold--to visit their grandmother, and to get Kenny's older brother away from the rough crowd he has been running with. Sadly, racism rears its ugly head as the family travels through the South, eventually culminating in the bombing of Kenny's grandmother's church while his younger sister and many others are inside.
- Genre: Juvenile Fiction
- Subgenre: Family / Multigenerational, General, Family / Siblings, Family / General, People + Places / United States / African-American, People + Places / United States / General, Social Issues / Prejudice + Racism
- Age: Teen
- Publisher: Listening Library
- Edition: Unabridged
- Language: English
- Format: audioCD
- Release Date: May 10, 2005
- Date Published: May 10, 2005
- Author: Christopher Paul Curtis
- Narrator: Levar Burton (Narrator)