An Evening with Christopher Paul Curtis

Award winning, Newbery Medalist author Christopher Paul Curtis will make a free public appearance at 7:00 pm on May 23 at the Stockton Memorial Civic Auditorium.

This appearance is the culmination of the Library's 2005 One Book, One San Joaquin reading/discussion program that featured Curtis' novel, The Watsons Go to Birmingham-1963. The Watsons enters the hilarious world of ten-year-old Kenny and his family, the Weird Watsons of Flint, Michigan. There's Momma, Dad, little sister Joetta, and brother Byron who's thirteen and an "official juvenile delinquent." When Momma and Dad decide it's time for a visit to Grandma, Dad comes home with the amazing Ultra-Glide, and the Watsons set out on a trip like no other. They're heading South, to Birmingham, Alabama, toward one of the darkest moments in America's history.

Curtis will give a reading from his novel, answer questions from the audience and sign autographs. The audience is invited to purchase books for signing from Barnes & Noble Booksellers and Borders Books who will be on hand to sell copies of his works. The evening's program for adults and youth promises to be a very poignant one filled with much humor.

For more information, please call 937-8221 or 1-866-805-READ (7323). This event is co-sponsored by Barnes & Noble Booksellers, Borders Books, City of Stockton, Library & Literacy Foundation for San Joaquin County, Friends of the Stockton Public Library, Haggin Museum, Gifts of Blackness, The Links, Inc., Stockton Radisson, Tracy African-American Association, and the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act, administered in California by the State Librarian.

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