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While The World Watched: A Birmingham Bombing Survivor Comes Of Age During The Civil Rights Movement (2011)

by Carolyn Maull McKinstry(Favorite Author)

3.95 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

1414336365 (ISBN13: 9781414336367)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Tyndale House Publishers

review 1: I have never read much about the civil rights movement - not due to lack of interest, but just because most of the history books I read for several years were for college classes, and my focus was not on America. So, while browsing the Kindle's free library, I found this book, read a few chapters, and was so engrossed in the memoir that I bought a copy of my own.The author was a member of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, and she was in the building when it was bombed by white supremacists, which killed four girls (all four of whom she knew and was friends with, and one was her best friend). Understandably traumatized by the event, the author details her struggles with forgiving the people responsible for the bombing, as well as her own involvemen... moret in the civil rights movement.It was an interesting read, and I found it difficult to put the book down for an extending period of time. Sometimes the writing seemed more geared towards a younger audience, and I could have done without the preachy tone (especially towards the end), but altogether, it was definitely worth my time to read this book.
review 2: Growing up in Canada far after the Civil Rights Movement, this book definitely introduced me to new information about the reality for African Americans during that time. Unfortunately I found it was hampered by the writing style. The prose is sparse and a bit stilted, which I can deal with since it's a memoir and everyone has their own voice. But the narration jumps around chronologically with very little indications to the reader of how much time has passed, and oh now we've gone back a few years, surprise! The quotations from Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders add useful context, but they repeat themselves fairly often. So while it's important to hear a first-hand account of the Civil Rights Movement and life in segregated Alabama, the book's format distracts from the message. less

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