Curtis, Christopher Paul 1954(?)–

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Christopher Paul Curtis 1954(?)–

Author

The life story of Christopher Paul Curtis has a fairytale ending. After working more than a dozen years on an automobile assembly line, Curtis wrote two critically acclaimed children’s books. His 1999 novel Bud, Not Buddy won the Newbery Medal, which is one of the most coveted prizes in children’s literature. The success of these books enabled Curtis to fulfill his lifelong dream of becoming a writer.

Curtis grew up in Flint, Michigan. After graduating from high school, he enrolled at the University of Michigan, Flint to study political science. However, in 1972, Curtis succumbed to the temptation of the relatively good wages to be made at the nearby Fisher Body automobile plant where his father worked. When the boredom of working for ten hours a day on an automobile assembly line became unbearable, he began to write to challenge himself intellectually. For thirty minutes, he would hang thirty car doors on the passenger side of Buicks as they slowly moved past on the assembly line. While his partner hung the next thirty doors, Curtis put pen to paper. Some of the works he composed were letters to Kaysandra, a registered nurse whom he met in 1977 and married 11 years later. Curtis quit working at the plant in 1985, and worked at a variety of other jobs. In 1988, he managed democratic Senator Donald Reigle, Jr.’s election campaigns in Flint and Saginaw.

In 1993, Kaysandra Curtis encouraged her husband to take a year off to write and earn his bachelor of arts degree. While attending classes at the University of Michigan in Flint, Curtis won Hopwood Awards for his essays and for the manuscript of what would eventually become his first published children’s book The Watsons Go to Birmingham — 1963. Although Curtis did not intend to write a children’s book, the story he wanted to tell came to him in the voice of a ten-year-old boy. He wrote his tale of the close-knit Watson family, known as the “Weird Watsons,” while sitting in the children’s department of the Windsor Public Library, in Windsor, Ontario. When he needed a break, he would help someone with homework or talk to the children. Curtis’s son Steven, a much better typist than his father, typed the daily portion of manuscript into the computer each night. Steven also critiqued his father’s work. “Lots of people can say they like it or they don’t, but not many can say what exactly doesn’t work. He can,” Curtis related to Linnea Lannon of the Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service. Curtis submitted his manuscript to Delacorte’s annual writing contest for first young adult novel, one

At a Glance…

Born May 10, 1954 in Flint, Ml; son of Herman (an auto worker) and Leslie Curtis; married Kaysandra (a registered nurse); children: Steven, Cydney. Education: University of Michigan-Flint, B.A., 1996.

Career: Writer. Fisher Body Plant, Flint, Ml, assembly line worker, 1972-85; assistantto Senator Don Reigle, Lansing, Ml; Automatic Data Processing, Allen Park, Ml

Awards: Hopwood Awards for essays, University of Michigan, Flint; Best Books, Publishers Weekly and New York Times Book Review, 1996; Coretta Scott KingText Honor, Best Books for Young Adults, and Newbery Honor Book, for The Watsons Goto Birmingham —1963, 1996; John Newbery Award and Coretta Scott King Awardfor Bud, Not Buddy, 2000.

Addresses: Home—Windsor, Ontario, Canada.

of four hundred manuscripts the publisher received that year. Although The Watsons Go to Birmingham did not fit the criteria for the contest, an editor pulled it out of the pile because of its eye-catching title and eventually decided to publish it. When the novel appeared in 1995, critics lavished praise upon it and actress Whoopi Goldberg bought film rights to the story.

Set in 1963 and told from the point of view of ten-year-old Kenny, readers meet the close-knit, Watson family, which includes the bossy older brother, Byron, and younger sister Joetta. When 13-year-old Byron starts getting into trouble in Flint, Michigan, his parents decide to take him to Alabama to live for a time with his Grandmother Sands. While traveling south in their car, the Watson children become aware of racial prejudice they had not experienced in the North. While they are in Alabama, a bomb explodes in a Sunday school classroom, one that Joetta had previously occupied. Although she is safe because she left school early, four other girls are killed. The entire community is shocked and the Watsons return to Michigan with new insights. While writing his debut novel, Curtis relied on the experiences of family members and personal memories. The bombing incident was based on the actual bombing of the Sixteenth Avenue Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, which took place in September of 1963.

Critics applauded The Watsons Go to Birmingham for Curtis’s characterizations, humor, and combination of factual and fictional events. According to Lannon, “It is a mark of Curtis’ skill that he so easily makes the transition from humorous family vignettes to a life-threatening run-in with racism.” Because readers have gotten to know and like the fictional Watson family, they react with distaste to the racism the Watsons encounter. “Curtis has created a wholly original novel in this warmly memorable evocation of an African American family and their experiences both terrible and transcendent,” added Martha V. Parravano in her review for Horn Book. One day while Curtis was writing in the library, a librarian approached him with a big smile on her face. She gave the surprised Curtis a hug and said to call home because The Watsons Go to Birmingham had just won the two most important awards in children’s literature. “I still have a moment of disbelief when I am introduced as a Newbery or Coretta Scott King Honor winner,” Curtis later told Teri Lesesne in an interview for Teacher Librarian. “Not only do the awards make it possible for the book to get much wider recognition and placement, they also help immeasurably in boosting one’s self confidence, something writers are always in need of.”

After his usual early morning game of basketball at the YMCA, Curtis went to the library and began working on a new novel. The new novel, Bud, Not Buddy, was published in 1999. “I actively tried not to think about the reception of The Watsons while I was working on number two,” Curtis told Lesesne. “I love the whole writing process and simply got back into the joy of writing.” In Bud, Not Buddy, Curtis did not plan a specific plot in advance, but focused instead on the personality of the main character. The main character and narrator is ten-year-old Bud Caldwell, an orphan who wants to find his birth father. Caldwell escapes from an orphanage in Flint and journeys 120 miles to Grand Rapids, where he believes his father is working as a leader for the band Herman E. Calloway and the Dusky Devastators of the Depression!!!!!! Again, a likeable main character, humor, and a concrete sense of place made this novel a standout. Although the novel is set in the 1930s during the Great Depression, Curtis was not trying to teach readers about history. He was using his grandfathers (one a band leader, the other a Negro League baseball pitcher) as models for characters. As Curtis explained to Michael D. Schaffer of the Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service, “I really believe the story comes first. You get kids’ attention first…. Then they can gain an idea of what is going on.” During his search for his father, Bud encounters a number of kind strangers, becomes involved in both humorous and frightening situations, and eventually finds a treasure, though one different than he expects.

Reviewers found much to like about Bud, Not Buddy. Writing in Booklist, Michael Cart summed up the novel’s appeal, “Curtis turns his novel into a celebration of the human capacity for simple goodness. Bud is, throughout, an altogether engaging character, and his search for a father—and the extended family that he finds instead—will warm readers’ hearts and refresh their spirits.” In the New York Times Book Review, Lois Metzger described Bud, Not Buddy as a “powerfully felt novel,” one that is “funny, eloquent, deeply sad and delightful (usually all at once).” “Surely Curtis’ second novel will attract and delight countless readers with its genial good humor and its generosity of spirit,” predicted Cart. When Curtis won the Newbery Medal and the Coretta Scott King Award in 2000 for Bud, Not Buddy, he had much to celebrate. He became the first African American to win the Newbery Medal since 1976, when Mildred Taylor won for Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. With these prestigious honors, Curtis’s books were destined to become classics of children’s literature, and allow him the financial security to write full time.

Curtis credits his wife for his tremendous success because she believed in his dream and gave him the freedom to pursue it. “I never thought it would be possible to make a living as a writer, but my wife Kay had more faith in me and gave me the courage and opportunity to take a chance,” Curtis told Lesesne. “I do believe we all have stories brewing inside of us, that it takes just the right amount of maturity, skill, dedication and luck to get them down into a published book.” Curtis has many more stories to tell, stories that are just waiting to be scrawled onto yellow legal pads at a table in the childrens’ section of the Windsor Public Library.