CHRISTOPHER PAUL CURTIS LAINA JONES (teacher): Today we have, the author of the book, with us here to answer any questions that you have. So let s welcome Mr. Curtis to the class today. CHRISTOPHER PAUL CURTIS: Thank you. It s a pleasure to be here. I hear you have questions. What are your questions? Who s first? Sir? STUDENT: Why do you keep making Kenny say, You might as well tie me up to a tree and say ready aim fire? CURTIS: Why do I have Kenny say, ready, aim, fire, so much? That shows Kenny s personality. Let s us know that he s thinking about things in kind of extreme ways that if something goes wrong or whatever, you re going to get tied to a tree and shot. So it s really just a device to let you know Kenny is thinking. Next? Yes? STUDENT: How long did it take you to write Watsons Go To Birmingham? CURTIS: It took me about a year all-told. At first the story was called The Watsons Go to Florida, 1963. And when I wrote it, I had the family go to Florida, nothing happened. Once they met Grandma Sands that was the end of the story. And I knew there was something more to the story. So, I put it aside. My son brought home a poem called Ballad of Birmingham, by Dudley Randall and it s a poem about the bombing of the 16 th Street Baptist Church. So, I knew as soon as I heard that poem again, I knew the family wanted to go to Birmingham. So, I had written for about six months and then I set it down for about three months and I finished the last part in about three months. So, it took about a year all-told to write it. CURTIS: My editor and I had quite a few discussions beforehand where she s felt as if that there was not enough mention of white people in Kenny s life and his reaction to what white people--the way that he would react to white people. And I told her that I thought that this wouldn t be something that would be on a ten-year-old boy s mind. 1
He lived in a segregated, pretty much segregated society in Flint. You know we think of segregation as being a southern thing. But actually northern cities are probably more segregated. And Flint was one but, there was not the negativity associated with it. The neighborhood i grew up in, everybody was black the doctors, the lawyers, most of the people that you dealt with day-to-day were black. And then once the family got to Birmingham, then the story of course changes and Kenny is really hit in the face with the ugliness of racism. STUDENT: What was your favorite chapter of the book? CURTIS: My favorite chapter of The Watsons Go to Birmingham-this is a trick that writers do some of the time. As a writer, and we re going to go into this a little more later, our job is to keep people turning pages, right? Have you ever started to read a book and you get halfway through it or not even that far some of the time and you say arrh arrh and you don t want to read it. The writer s not doing their job. What I want to first of all, grab your attention and make you think boy if this happened what else might happen? So I think my favorite chapter is the first one where Byron gets his lips stuck to the mirror. And I hope that that makes you, the reader, when the reader is reading this I hope they say wow this Byron guy is something else, what else will he do? And they want to keep turning the pages. STUDENT: Why did you become a writer? CURTIS: Why I became a writer was I was working in a warehouse--at the time I started writing this book--unloading trucks and writing was something that I wasn t sure I d be able to make a living at but I followed a dream. And if you have something that you re dreaming about something that you want, follow the dream. Some of the times things work out. It worked out for me. I enjoy writing. So I write because I love it. I feel relaxed after I write. It s just a good thing for me to do. Other questions, YES? STUDENT: How many books have you wrote? 2
CURTIS: I ve written a total of five books right now. One First one was The Watsons go to Birmingham, 1963. Mr. Chickee s Funny Monee was number two, then I wrote Bud, not Buddy. Then I just finished one called Bucking the Sarge, and that ll be out in September. And I m working on one I m very close to being done right now to one called Elijah of Buxton, and that takes place in Canada back in the 1860s. And Buxton was a place where the Underground Railroad kind of led out; it was the end stop of the Underground Railroad. And in the 1860s there was a community of over two thousand former slaves living in this area. They had a wonderful, kind of a utopian community going there. It s very interesting, and I m having a great time writing this story. STUDENT: Will you make another book like this? A second book like this? CURTIS: Okay, her question is: Am I going to make a second book which is called a? Sequel. A sequel to The Watsons Go to Birmingham. I don t think so. Um, I think the family has gone through enough. You know, if there s another story, there has to be a whole nother dramatic thing. And I think the Watsons going through the bombing is enough for one family. STUDENT: Why did Byron always have to be the bad kid in there, in the book? CURTIS: Byron. Alright, why did Byron have to be the bad kid? You have to remember, who s telling the story? Kenny, right? So we re seeing it through Kenny s eyes. I don t think Byron was anywhere near as bad as Kenny makes us think he is. Because if you look, you can see that Byron is always doing things to help Kenny. To try to help him understand things. STUDENT: Which character are you most like? CURTIS: So you re asking me if I m like Kenny or Byron? Well- so, then what you re asking is am I a little juvenile, delinquent, thug hoodlum? Or a kind, loving, intelligent, sweet young guy? 3
I m the kind, loving, sweet, intelligent. No, all the characters are really composites. They re combinations of people. That s one of the great things about writing. You can take- I can take your personality, I can take his personality. And I can make one character out of it. I can have- just as long as it s consistent, I can keep doing that. And what I did with the characters in the Watsons, I used myself as a model, my brother, people that I knew from school, friends, and imagination. All those things come to play. So none of the characters are actually based on, one person. I m probably more like Kenny seriously, though, just cause I was bullied a lot when I was a little boy. And you know, I was kind of quiet like Kenny. STUDENT: How did your family and your children and your wife react when they read the book? CURTIS: That s a good question. I was a first time author, I had never written anything before it s hard when you re a writer how many other writers are there in here? Ah I should see every hand up. How many other writers are in here? Very good. (kids raise their hands) CURTIS: And as writers we know that writing is personal, right? You re writing about things that you re feeling or things that you re thinking and when you write them down like that you re exposing yourself you re showing how you feel and you re making yourself open to attacks and things. So as a first time writer I didn t know who to give the book to-to read it. You find out quickly though who s a good reader for you and who isn t. I d give it to my wife she read it and all she could say was she really liked it and I said what did you like about it, she couldn t tell me all she was just, I liked the book. I gave it to my son--who was fifteen at the time--and he was very, very helpful. He told me--he s a big reader--he told me well this part doesn t seem to make sense. Or I don t believe that Kenny would have said this to Byron that doesn t sound like a kid talking that sounds more like an adult talking. So you have to give it to other people. 4
CURTIS: I think it s really valuable that students do a lot of reading because they ll see a lot of different styles. They ll see some that they really don t like, some that aren t accessible to them, but then they ll find something that really grabs them, that really nails them and they can use that kind of as a template for the way that they want to write. 5