Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Change, Coming of Age, and Maturity
Family, Friendship, and Support
Bullying and Injustice vs. Kindness and Compassion
Race and Class
Summary
Analysis
Because she grew up in the South, Wilona isn’t used to the cold. She therefore makes her kids dress in very warm clothes each winter—so warm, in fact, that Joey can’t even get out of her snowsuit without help. Each day at school, then, Kenny takes off his own coat and finds Joey to help her peel off the many layers.
The fact that Kenny takes time out of his day to help his little sister get out of her snow clothes is endearing. It demonstrates just how much he thinks about other people and is willing to show kindness to his little sister. Although some children might be embarrassed by the idea of helping their little sister take off her coat, Kenny doesn’t mind because he would rather show Joey kindness than think about his own reputation.
Themes
Joey is always sweating and hot when she finally gets free of her snow clothes, so she asks her mother if she can wear fewer layers. Wilona refuses, insisting that people can die from the cold. If that’s the case, though, Joey notes that there would be frozen people in the streets, but Wilona disregards such an outrageous idea. But while waiting for the bus, Byron tricks Joey and Kenny by claiming that people really do freeze in the streets. The only reason Joey and Kenny have never seen frozen bodies is because garbage trucks come around and collect them before anyone can see. Suddenly terrified of garbage trucks, Joey starts crying, but Byron doesn’t care—he just tells Kenny to give his “regards” to Clark Elementary and leaves them there in the cold.
It becomes clear in this scene that Byron doesn’t just pick on Kenny—he also likes to trick Joey. However, his story about garbage trucks collecting frozen people isn’t all that harmful. It scares Joey, but it also encourages her to dress warmly. In a way, then, Byron uses his trickery to help his mother, since his scary story makes it less likely that his little sister will take off her coat in the freezing cold. He therefore shows a subtle kind of brotherly love and support, even if it’s disguised as a mischievous trick.
Themes
Because Wilona is so afraid of the cold, she gives each of her children real leather gloves. Nobody else at school has such nice gloves—they have to run around with their sleeves pulled over their hands. But Kenny and his siblings each get two pairs of leather gloves. Knowing he still has another pair, Kenny gives his first pair to Rufus, who doesn’t have anything to wear on his hands. He tells his mother that he lost the first pair, but then he actually loses the second pair, so he and Rufus have to share, each of them only wearing one glove whenever they have snowball fights.
Kenny recognizes that Rufus’s family doesn’t have enough money to give him warm gloves, so he willingly shares his own with his friend. In doing so, he demonstrates his desire to help people whenever he can, though his plan ultimately backfires when he loses his second pair of gloves. But instead of asking Rufus for his gloves back, he agrees to share them with his friend, once again revealing just how devoted he is to treating others with kindness.
Themes
One snowy day, Larry Dunn encounters Rufus and Kenny and starts bullying them. He rubs their faces in the snow and torments them for a while before eventually moving on, though not before Kenny notices that he’s wearing leather gloves that look quite similar to the pair he originally “lost.” The only difference is that they’re black instead of brown. After Larry leaves, Rufus points out that Larry must have stolen the gloves, since all of the snow that Larry touched is now black. It becomes clear that Larry stole the gloves and then changed their color by covering them in black shoeshine, which is now rubbing off in the snow.
Even though Kenny is Byron’s little brother, he still has to deal with bullies like Larry Dunn. Worse, he and Rufus discover that Larry is the one who stole the original pair of gloves, which left them with no choice but to share a single pair with each other. In this moment, then, it doesn’t seem like Kenny’s relation to Byron has protected him from Larry at all.
Themes
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Kenny and Rufus tell Byron that Larry bullied them and stole Kenny’s gloves. After finding Larry, Byron slaps him multiple times and rips the gloves off his hands. He pushes him into a nearby chain-link fence over and over again. Larry has no good way of defending himself, since he’s standing on a patch of ice. He therefore keeps crashing into the fence, but he doesn’t cry.
Larry soon learns that what goes around comes around—in other words, he’s forced to realize that he can’t pick on Kenny without expecting to hear from Byron. There’s a hierarchy at play in the schoolyard, and Byron is at the very top. The question is, though, whether or not bullying Larry will really teach him to stop bullying others himself—after all, two wrongs don’t make a right, so it’s unlikely that Byron’s fierce response will do anything but embitter Larry.
Themes
Kenny marvels at how tough Larry is, especially when Larry lifts his hands over his head, inadvertently revealing that he’s only wearing a thin, ripped windbreaker and a flimsy t-shirt. When he falls down, everyone can see holes in the bottom of his shoes. The gathering crowd laughs at him, but he maintains his composure. Still, Byron keeps thrashing him, but Kenny doesn’t stay to watch—he wishes he never even told Byron what happened. He would rather have gone with just one glove for the rest of the year than watch his brother treat Larry so cruelly.
Kenny told Byron about what Larry did as a way of getting his gloves back and taking revenge—but revenge doesn’t feel very good. Instead of feeling vindicated and satisfied, Kenny just feels bad for Larry, especially when he sees Larry’s flimsy winter clothing. The implication is that Larry’s family—like Rufus’s family—doesn’t have enough money to buy him warm winter clothes. Suddenly, the fact that Larry stole Kenny’s gloves seems forgivable, which is why it’s so hard for Kenny to watch Byron beat him up.
Themes
