I decided to read this book after reading, loving, and eventually teaching The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963 last year. There are numerous similarities between the two stories - both feature protagonists that are so good-natured and comedically oblivious to the world in a way that immediately endears them to you. Curtis knows how to write protagonists that you just adore. The two books also feature a heavy frontloading of worldbuilding, roughly the first 50% of each book is exploring the protagonist’s world, their family, their home, their towns. Normally this would be a negative - but in both Watsons and Elijah, I just *had* to keep reading because I had to know what hijinks the protagonist would get up to. Both books feature worlds that feel so real, with characters so lovable and heartbreaking. I’ve read the Watsons a few times, and this is also a book I will return to when I need a comfort read. It feels strange calling a book that turns towards the horrors of slavery and death at the end a “comfort read” - but that is also something Curtis does in both books. He is able to construct a heartfelt, emotional, warm tale, while also balancing true historical accuracies. He does not underplay the atrocities of slavery and segregation, but he also does not center to them. These are not stories that rewrite history, and they are not stories that only perpetuate the history of Black suffering. They are the stories of people so believable they could be real, and by the end, you’ll wish they were.