Book Nook: We Were the Fire - Birmingham 1963

 

Poet, producer, playwright, and author Shelia P. Moses delivers a moving story about the civil rights movement, equality, and kids’ power to change their world for the better in her latest middle-grade novel We Were the Fire: Birmingham 1963.  Moses shares the powerful story of an eleven-year-old Black boy who heroically stands in protest against the systemic issues of race and discrimination during the tumultuous civil rights movement of 1963 in Birmingham, Alabama.

 

In this striking piece of historical fiction, National Book Award Finalist Moses tells the riveting story of Rufus Jackson Jones Jr., a pre-teen growing up in highly racialized Birmingham—the same city Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called the most segregated place in America. Caught up in a world of hatred and bigotry—a world intent on keeping Black people separate and unequal—Rufus and his friends must learn to be the embodiment of hope and light in an otherwise bleak situation so they can usher in a new era of love and acceptance for all.

 

A bit more about the book:

●        Birmingham, AL in 1963 is full of civil rights activists including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The adults are trying to get more attention to their cause—to show that separate is not equal.

●        Eleven-year-old Rufus’s dad works at the local steel factory, and his mom is a cook at the mill. If they participate in marches, their bosses will fire them.

●        So that’s where the kids decide they will come in. Nobody can fire them. So on a bright May morning in 1963, Rufus and his buddies join thousands of other students to peacefully protest in a local park.

●        There they are met with policemen and firemen who turn their powerful hoses on them, and that’s where Rufus realizes that they are the fire. And they will not be put out.

●        Shelia Moses gives readers a deeply personal account of one boy’s heroism during what came to be known as the Children’s Crusade in this important novel that highlights a key turning point in the civil rights movement.

 

In this gripping coming-of-age story, We Were the Fire: Birmingham 1963 highlights the beauty that can come out of life’s toughest battles. Middle grade readers will be inspired by Rufus’ fearlessness as he realizes that kids have the power to change the world and can burn as brilliant and strong as fire.