We Were the Fire: Birmingham 1963
by Shelia P. Moses
Middle School     Paulsen/Penguin    176 pp.         g
9/22     978-0-593-40748-6     $17.99
e-book ed.  978-0-593-40749-3    $10.99

Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963 was “a city that little children brought to its knees.” Residents were tired of poor housing, poor pay, poor schools, and the lack of voting rights. So they protested, with children leading the way. Thousands of young people poured into the streets to protest segregation, and over three thousand were jailed. Moses leads readers into the scene through the eyes and voice of eleven-year-old Rufus Jackson Jones Jr., rooting these historical events in a compelling family story. Rufus’s mama and stepdaddy tell him and his little sister, Georgia, that they are too young to join the protests, but Rufus does anyway. After witnessing beatings and police dog attacks, he faces Bull Connor’s fire hoses; he wonders where the fire is but realizes that the protesters “were the fire,” one the police intend to extinguish but also one igniting the passions of citizens seeking justice. This is a good match with Christopher Paul Curtis’s The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963 (1995), though Moses’s novel ends months prior to the horrific church bombing, allowing her to highlight the protests’ ­successes, including desegregation of the city (though much work remained). Moving and memorable for such a brief novel; and the author’s note is important reading in its own right.

From the September/October 2022 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.