Kenny, age 9, is part of the Weird Watsons of Flint, Michigan. As a middle child and a bookish soon with a more physical older brother and more biddable younger sister, he has a hard time figuring out just where he belongs in the scheme of things. Some days, he wants to be more like his older brother, Byron, but then there are days like this when they are packing up the family for a road trip to Alabama to drop Bryon off with their grandmother to try and keep him out of trouble at home and see if she can't help him learn to behave better. However, the kids have never been in the deep South before and there are some lessons that hit too close to home.
I read this with my 7th grader and we both really enjoyed it. There are some scary parts in it and the end section talking about how things like the church bombing were too common are hard for kids to read but I felt it was hard enough to try and open eyes to the racism that exists in our country without being too graphic for more sensitive readers. Of course, with too many of children having to live through active shooter drills at schools, I think they are all too aware of at least what hate can do and that is a sad commentary on our society today,
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