BUD, NOT BUDDY (NOVEL)

 

Title: BUD, NOT BUDDY
Author: Christopher Paul Curtis
Published by: Scholastic Inc.


Young Bud tells his story in BUD, NOT BUDDY in his own lively voice, making his character practically leap off the page. At times tough, sad, resilient, and funny, 10-year-old Bud is completely irresistible. His personality, with the fast pace of the story, captured my attention on the first page and kept me hooked right through to the end. I like that he has a tendency to let me in on his lists and rules. I think the voice the author creates for Bud is effective and it really draws you in.

The setting for this novel is  in 1936, and is in the Depression Era of  Flint, Michigan. It concerns Bud (not Buddy, as he likes to point out) - a ten year old orphan trying to survive. His mother passed away a few years before the story starts, and he has never met his father. Bud has lived in terrible foster homes and orphanages. At the beginning of the story you think that he is going to finally get a break and here he goes again into a bad house. He gets beat up for no reason and put into the shed because Todd (Toddy, his mom calls him) tells lies on Bud. So Bud goes off on his own to find his father and the novel becomes a road novel. Luckily Bud keeps meeting up with good people who are willing to share what little they have, and to help Bud as much as they can. It is this portrayal of people at their best when circumstances are at their worst that ultimately makes the story a hopeful and heartwarming one. It is filled with tramp villages (Hoovertowns), jazzmen, and  grown-ups of all varieties.

 Sure that this Herman E. Calloway is his father, Bud sets out to find him. But when Calloway turns out to be a grumpy old man, Miss Thomas, the Dusky Devastator's kind "vocal stylist," convinces him to give the ten-year-old a place to stay. Bud moves into the big house known as Grand Calloway Station and, with the help of Momma's rocks, soon discovers that Herman E. Calloway isn't his father at all--he's Bud's grandfather!

This book uses emotions, verbs, and just good old fashion writing to pull you in and keep you reading. I finished this book in one day. I just couldn't put it down once I got started. I wanted to know how it was going to end. Boy, was I surprised. 

I like that there were no pictures in the book only on the front cover. But throughout the book I could see what the author was talking about. Every time I would read a part, with the descriptions that were given I could make a mind movie. This makes Christopher Paul Curtis not only an author, but a complete genius.
He took descriptive words and created mind pictures.