ABSTRACT
Kenny Watson, in The Watsons Go to Birmingham – 1963 (Curtis, 1995), has been warned not to go swimming at Collier’s Landing because of a dangerous whirlpool. His grandmother pronounces it ‘Wool Pooh’ in her accented Alabaman English, and Kenny’s usually fearless older brother, Byron, tells him that the Wool Pooh is Winnie’s evil twin, eager to suck him under and drown him. Kenny is not about to let a silly fantasy explanation like that stop him from having a cool swim on a hot day, and he enters the seemingly tranquil water only to be grabbed by the Wool Pooh, whose grey fingers he sees and feels clutching his feet and dragging him to his death. He is rescued, but that isn’t his last encounter with the Wool Pooh; the second time the monster shows up is at the site of the Birmingham church bombing, moving in and out of the smoke-filled confusion where four teenage girls were killed in a stunning hate crime.
