The year is 1963, and self-important Byron Watson is the bane* of his younger brother Kenny’s existence. Always in trouble for one thing or another, from straightening his hair into a “conk” to lighting fires to freezing his lips to the mirror of the new family car, Byron finally pushes his family too far.

    Before this “official juvenile delinquent*” can cut school or steal change one more time, Momma and Dad finally make good on* their threat to send him to the deep south to spend the summer with his tiny, strict grandmother. Soon the whole family is packed up, ready to make the drive from Flint, Michigan, straight into one of the most chilling moments in America’s history: the burning of the 16th Avenue Baptist Church with four little girls inside.

    Christopher Paul Curtis’s hilarious* and deeply moving novel, winner of the Newbery Honor and the Coretta Scott King Honor, blends the fictional account of an Afro-American family with the factual events of the violent summer of 1963. Fourth-grader Kenny is an innocent* and sincere narrator; his ingenuousness* lends authenticity to the story and invites readers of all ages into his world, even as it changes before his eyes.

    But readers need to beware of some of the crude language used by Byron and his friends.

    The book is available at online bookstores such as amazon.cn and jd.com.(SD-Agencies)