SOURCE CITATION
"Christopher Paul Curtis." Major Authors and Illustrators for Children and Young Adults, 2nd ed., 8 vols. Gale Group, 2002. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale. 2007.
Photo © 2003 James Keyser and provided by Random House.

BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY
Christopher Paul Curtis is not your typical, everyday sort of writer. For one thing, he doesn't spend long hours in front of a computer screen, busily typing away. Instead, he writes the old-fashioned way--in longhand. Where he writes is unusual too. Instead of a quiet office, comfortable backyard patio, or spacious dining room table, Curtis wrote his first book, The Watsons Go to Birmingham--1963, at a table in the children's section of his local public library. The award-winning story of a closely knit African-American family that makes a trip from their home in Michigan to the racially divided South during the civil rights era, Curtis's novel has literally changed its author's life. Praised by readers and reviewers and awarded a Newbery honor in 1996, The Watsons Go to Birmingham allowed Curtis to finally fulfill his dream of becoming a full-time writer.

Raised in Flint, Michigan, like the characters in his first novel, Curtis worked in a local automotive assembly plant for more than a decade after graduating from high school. After putting his dreams of a college education on hold for several long years, he began attending classes part-time at the University of Michigan while holding down another job, and finally graduated in 1996. During that time, encouraged by winning the university's Hopwood prize for a rough draft of his story, Curtis agreed with his wife Kaysandra's suggestion that he take a year off and see what he could do as a writer. With the strong support of his family--his wife assumed many of their financial responsibilities while son Steven typed his father's handwritten manuscript into the family's computer every night--the story was completed by the end of 1993, and Curtis entered his manuscript in a national writing contest, where it came to the attention of Delacorte editors. Although his story did not meet the content guidelines specified for contest eligibility, Delacorte editor Wendy Lamb was thrilled with the novel and began making arrangements to publish it.

The Watsons Go to Birmingham recounts everyday events in the life of Kenny Watson, a ten-year-old African American boy. Blessed with a quick wit and a crossed eye, Kenny lives in the industrialized city of Flint, Michigan, along with his parents, his little sister, and his bossy older brother, Byron. As the novel's narrator, Kenny believes that everyone in his neighborhood must think his family is nuts--the "Weird Watsons." Byron, who has just turned thirteen, has made the transformation from bossy older brother to teenage juvenile delinquent almost overnight, flushing flaming tissue parachutes down the toilet, dying his hair bright red and then getting it "conked" (straightened), and generally bullying his younger siblings--including little sister Joetta, a kindergartner trying to keep up with her older brothers.

During the summer of 1963, Kenny's parents decide to take a vacation to Birmingham, Alabama, the home of Grandma Sands, to see if she can shake some sense into the obstinate and unruly Byron. After packing everything they'll need for the trip--roadside restaurants that served blacks weren't too common in the segregated South of the 1960s--everyone piles into the family car, the "Brown Bomber," to begin the long journey. In Birmingham, the mood of the novel shifts, as the lighthearted hijinks of the Watson brood suddenly become overshadowed by the racial tensions of the era. Kenny and his family experience racial violence first-hand when four teens are killed after a bomb explodes in the same Sunday school classroom where little Joetta attended class. Although the young girl is physically unharmed, she and the rest of her family return to Michigan transformed by their experiences. Remarking on the shift between the lighthearted first part of Curtis's novel and its tragic ending, Betsy Hearne wrote in the Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books: "The contrast is startling, innovative, and effective. . . . showing how--and why--the Civil Rights movement affected individual African Americans." Horn Book reviewer Martha V. Parravano similarly asserted that "Curtis's control of his material is superb as he unconventionally shifts tone and mood, as he depicts the changing relationship between the two brothers, and as he incorporates a factual event into his fictional story." Kermit Frazier of the New York Times Book Review praised The Watsons Go to Birmingham--1963 as "a marvelous debut, a fine novel about a solid and appealing family."

In addition to his talent for spinning an imaginative and entertaining tale, Curtis based parts of his book on memories of his own childhood, as well as on an historic event--the actual bombing of Birmingham's Sixteenth Avenue Baptist Church in September, 1963. Although Curtis was not a witness to that event, he did a great deal of research in writing the novel. And he did not consciously prepare his tale for a particular audience. "Perhaps because Curtis didn't think the novel would be for children when he started it, there's nothing heavy-handed or preachy about the Watsons' brush with the civil rights movement," noted Linnea Lannon in an article on Curtis for the Detroit Free Press.

Curtis's debut novel has been praised for its warmly drawn characters and its vivid settings. "When the 'Weird Watsons' drive to Birmingham . . . to visit Grandma," wrote Ann Valentine Martino in the Ann Arbor News, "you feel like you're riding along in the back seat--with Kenny's little sister drooling in your lap." The author's sister, Cydney, told Lannon in the Detroit Free Press that she had "read a lot of Chris's writing over the years," and went on to say of The Watsons Go to Birmingham--1963, "This is good, but I don't think it's his best. His best is yet to come."

Curtis's next book, Bud, Not Buddy, is about a ten-year-old orphan living in foster care in Flint, Michigan, during the Depression. No one is allowed to call him Buddy; his late mother told him that Buddy was a name for a dog or a name someone would use when they were just pretending to be friendly. He's just Bud. This name, and a pile of fliers from jazz bands, are just about the only legacies that Bud has from his mother. He does not know who his father is, but suspects that it may be Grand Rapids-based jazz bandleader Herman E. Calloway. When his newest foster home becomes abusive, Bud runs away and sets out on foot to find Calloway.

Through Bud's journey across Michigan during the depths of the Depression, Curtis illustrates racism and hobo life during the Depression in a story that manages to maintain a light tone despite its heavy subject matter. Bud's fear of vampires and his "Rules and Things to Have a Funner Life and Make a Better Liar of Yourself" amused many critics. Several, including Black Issues Book Review contributor Rosemarie Robotham and Michael Cart of Booklist, commented that their favorite rule from the list was Number 83: "If an adult tells you not to worry, and you weren't worried before, you better hurry up and start 'cause you're already running late."

Curtis drew heavily on historical figures in writing this book. The librarian Miss Hill, who befriends Bud during the hours he spent in the library before he ran away, is the legendary librarian, Charlemae Ross, before she married, moved to Chicago, and became famous. Bandleader Calloway is based on Curtis's grandfather Herman E. Curtis, who led a band called "The Dusky Devastators of the Depression!!!!!!." Curtis even gave this same name to Calloway's band in the book. Earl "Lefty" Lewis, Curtis's maternal grandfather, appears under his own name, giving Bud a lift during his walk across the state.

Bud, Not Buddy, launched Curtis into the record books. It was the first book by an African-American author to win the Newbery Medal since 1976, and the first book to win both the Newbery Medal and the Coretta Scott King Award in the same year. Curtis recalled in an interview published in People Weekly how he broke this news to his wife. If he could get honorable mentions for both of those awards, would she let him not do any chores for a year? "She said, 'No, you have to win. Then I said, 'Yay! No housework for a year!,'" he laughed.

PERSONAL INFORMATION
Born May 10, 1953, in Flint, MI; son of Herman (a chiropodist and an auto worker) and Leslie (a homemaker) Curtis; married Kaysandra (a nurse; maiden name Sookram); children: Steven, Cydney. Avocation: Playing basketball, collecting old record albums. Education: University of Michigan-Flint, B.A. (political science), 1996. Addresses: Home--Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Agent--c/o Wendy Lamb, Delacorte Press, 1540 Broadway, New York, NY 10036-4094.

CAREER
Writer. Fisher Body Plant, Flint, MI, assembly line worker, 1972-85; also assistant to Senator Don Riegle, Lansing, MI, during his 1988 campaign; worked for Automatic Data Processing, Allen Park, MI.