BUD, NOT BUDDY

Author (last name first): Curtis, Christopher Paul

Publisher, Date of Publication: Delacorte/ 1999

Pages: 243pges

Grade Level/ or Age Level: 4-7

Classification: Fiction

With his very popular book about portion of his childhood, THE WATSONS GO TO BIRMINGHAM--1963 for which he won the Newbery Honor award and a Coretta Scott King Honor award, Christopher Paul Curtis established himself as an accomplished author.
In Curtis' new book, BUD, NOT BUDDY, taking place during the year of 1963, ten-year-old Bud is taken from the Home(orphanage) again to live in another foster home. He takes his suitcase with all his belongings: five flyer's of Herman E. Colloway and his band, five smooth rocks with writing on them, a blanket, and a picture of his mother when she was young. He has his own rules for a better life tucked inside his head. Bud's mother died four years ago. He has run away before, but this time he runs away from the terrible treatment at the Amoses and finds himself with no one to help after he discovers his friend, Miss Hill the librarian, has married and moved to Chicago.
Bud decides to walk from Flint to Grand Rapids and find Herman E. Calloway because he thinks that Calloway must be his absent father( as he thinks his mother has kept all of the hand bills advertising his band for this reason). A kind hearted man picks him up, takes him home for the night, and delivers him to the Log Cabin, Herman E. Calloway's Club the next day. He is accepted by the band and the singer, Miss Thomas, but not by Calloway until by accident Bud finds out about all of the smooth rocks Herman has and shows him his five rocks. Herman is so devastated that he goes off by himself and cries because it becomes apparent that Bud's mother was Herman's daughter who ran away 14 years before. Bud, Not Buddy has found a real home.
Curtis has won the Newbery award for this outstanding book and also the Coretta Scott King award, both for the year 2000.

Reviewer: Sara Easter