The Watsons Go To Birmingham 1963 By Christopher Paul Curtis

Often when families are faced with tragedy they just give up but not the Watsons they use each other to get over hard times. In the story “ The Watsons Go To Birmingham 1963” by Christopher Paul Curtis the Watsons use each other to get thru tough times, for example, they were faced with racism, almost drowning, a church booming, and a hut family, but instead of giving up they used each other to get over those times. In The Watsons Go To Birmingham -1963, the character of Byron demonstrates that you can always use your family to help you with hard tragedies . When the story begins, people see Byron as a delinquent and a bully, but once the chapters go by Byron is showing that he cares about people and his family. One example

So Kenny told his older brother and to his surprise Byron was going to help Kenny with that problem and be a punctual older brother. According to the story, it states that“Pop him," said Larry Dunn a slap on the arm. "I'ma only tell you one more time. Pop him." I hit Larry a little harder. I hoped he'd bend over and act like killed him but he stood there trying to look cool.” ( 60). This shows that Byron’s says of protecting not only his brother but his family isn’t the most respected way, but he still cares about his family even if he doesn’t act like it. To continue, Kenny, Joey, and Byron heard grandma sands telling them about a pond where people broke into and sadly passed away. Kenny didn’t believe his grandmother so he went to check it out with Byron and Joey but Byron and Joey were so against the idea to swim in there even Byron. So Kenny was the only on to want to swim there and Byron didn’t want him to get hurt so he made up a story about something called a “whool pool” to keep him out of the pond, but Kenny didn’t believe it. Then he broke into the pond and went in and suddenly he thought that the “whool pool” was trying to get him and didn’t understand that it was a whirlpool and was about to die by what called a “whool pool”. Kenny states that “Byron and the Wool Pooh started duking it out. By must have hit it a hundred times in that place where its

So what Kenny did was he hid behind their couch and he thought that since the animals were healed behind the couch then so could Kenny be healed. But after days and days his family started to notice especially Byron and he wanted to help him so he did. Byron stated "Shut up and cry if you want." ( 199). Usually when older brothers say just shut up and cry it means in a mean way but not Byron. That quote shows that Byron is not only helping Kenny he is also taking those emotions away he is telling Kenny it’s ok to cry on his shoulder I'm your family. To reinforce the topic, Kenny kept on thinking that it was his fault of the booming and of joey but it really wasn’t. But Byron helped him and told him this “But you just gotta understand that that's the way it is and keep on steppin"(203). This means that you have to understand that life is not fair and you can’t just give up and that’s what Byron told