The Watsons Go to Birmingham – 1963

Kenny is a 10-year-old Black American boy living in Flint, Michigan, in 1963. He is in the fourth grade at Clark Elementary School. He lives in a rented house with his parents, his older brother, Byron, and his younger sister, Joetta (Joey). At the beginning of the story, Kenny shares that he experiences bullying from peers; friends are hard to come by for him, as indicated by his experience with “friend” LJ, who tricks Kenny and steals his dinosaurs. Kenny refers to fellow students at his bus stop who board in a daily hierarchy as “old thugs, young thugs, regular kids, then me” (27). This description shows his propensity for separating from his peer group. When Byron chooses to skip school, Kenny relates, the teasing on the bus is worse. Kenny first thinks Rufus, a new student from Arkansas, will draw the teasing and bullying away, but soon Kenny realizes it is better to have a sincere friend in Rufus than to use Rufus as a bully shield.

Kenny has a “lazy eye” condition in which one eye has trouble focusing on what’s directly ahead. He also has impressive reading skills, which his teachers promote and praise at school. Students tease him for both of these reasons, using a variety of nicknames with which to harass him: Egghead, Poindexter, Professor, Cockeye Kenny. Kenny gets a modicum of help from Byron: Byron suggests Kenny look sideways at people so that his “eyes is straight as a arrow now!” (26), and Byron stops his friend Buphead from teasing Kenny for his reading ability.

Kenny’s parents love and support him with strong morals and diligent attentiveness. Kenny expresses love and a caring attitude toward Joey throughout almost all of the novel; he sympathizes with her hot winter clothes forced by Momma, and he worries and fears the worst at the church bombing. Only in the falling action does Kenny find Joey whiny and annoying, and this results from his trauma and raw emotions in the aftermath of the church attack.

Older brother Byron has strong influence over Kenny. Byron’s misbehaviors and “Fantastic Adventures” have a direct effect on both Kenny (for example, Kenny is especially teased on the school bus when Byron skips school) and on the family (Byron’s unwise decisions prompt Momma’s and Dad’s decision to take the family to Birmingham). Byron is often cruel and physically rough with Kenny; Kenny enjoys when he is able to tease Byron or get in a dig at him, such as when he calls Byron the Lipless Wonder. Byron shows strong measures of sincere love and devotion to Kenny, however, by the novel’s end; when Kenny almost drowns at Collier’s Landing and later can’t shake his emotional upset from the church bombing, Byron saves Kenny both times.

Kenny’s internal conflict in the book involves his experience of growing up. Though he wants to think about shaving and going on his own “Fantastic Adventures,” Kenny is only 10 and has not yet gained much maturity and wisdom. His character arc shows evidence of maturation, though, when he takes Byron’s advice to leave his emotional distress behind the couch and rejoin the family while concurrently rejecting Byron’s insistence that magic doesn’t exist. Kenny sees by the story’s conclusion that magic truly lives in the love of one’s family.