Weatherford, C B (2007). Birmingham, 1963. Honesdale, PA: Wordsong. ISBN: 1-59078-440-5.

 

 

 

Told by a little black girl of ten, the 1963 events of Birmingham are described first hand by this child. She misses school to march for equal treatment, but suffers the punishment of water hoses and dogs and some go to jail.  She’s in Sunday school at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church when it is bombed.  The four young girls that were killed are memorialized in this book. 

 

 

 

The book contains text and photographs. The left side of the page contains the little girl’s thoughts and feelings; the right side of the page contains actual photographs from that period in history. The page with text is light gray with abstract red marks and memorabilia (a Motown 45 record) or clothing like white church gloves or a shoe from this time are pictured.

 

 

 

Repetition 

 

 

 

Told by a little black girl of ten, the 1963 events of Birmingham are described first hand by this child. She misses school to march for equal treatment, but suffers the punishment of water hoses and dogs and some go to jail. She’s in Sunday school at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church when it is bombed. The four young girls that were killed are memorialized in this book.

 

The following are examples of repetition in the text of the book. 

 

Pages 4, 6 "The year I turned ten." 

 

 

 

Pages 10,14,18,24,28 "The day I turned ten." 

 

 

 

The powerful phrase, "the year (day) I turned ten" reminds the reader that the child telling the reader about these horrific historical events is just a ten year old child and she has witnessed and experienced more than she should.

Curriculum Use:

 

American History 

 

Black History Month 

 

Race Relations 

 

 

 

 

Rating:  5Q/3P

MWood

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Weatherford, C. B. (2007).  Birmingham, 1963. Honesdale, PA: Wordsong. ISBN: 1-59078-440-5.

 

 

 

In free verse illustrated by archival black-and-white photographs, a fictional girl narrates the true story of the four girls who were killed in the 1963 church bombing of a Birmingham, Alabama church, a defining moment of the Civil Rights Movement.  The profiles of the four innocent lives lost and the details surrounding the tragedy are a fitting tribute presented in an honest, moving, intimate format.

 

Pairs well with Christopher Paul Curtis’s novel The Watsons Go to Birmingham

 

Curricular connection:  Civil rights/Grade 11/CA HSS 11.10

 

 

Artwork: Archival black-and-white photographs and collage-style images of objects – some shades of gray with splashes of red

Artwork Discussion:  In Birmingham, 1963, the somber tone of Carole Boston Weatherford’s free verse account of the tragic church bombing is reflected in the palette of black, white, and shades of gray with a splash of red, the latter no doubt symbolic of the loss of four young lives.  Archival photographs of the KKK, civil rights activities, and the bombed church juxtaposed with hazy photographs of ordinary objects such as white gloves, coins, jewelry, barrettes, birthday candles, and more bordering the text, underscore the heartbreaking reality of the brutality visited upon the innocent.  As the conclusion, most striking are the simple headshots of the victims, each framed in white against a stark black backdrop, remembered in verse for their everyday activities and their unfulfilled aspirations.

 

 

Literary Devices:  Symbolism

Subjects: Racism; Hate crimes; Civil Rights Movement

Theme: We are all the same on the inside.  Hate demeans us all.

Categories: Factual events (related by a fictional character)

Age Level Recommendation: Middle School (and up)

Rating:5Q/4P 

AAS 5-3-08