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Book | Searching... Cabell County Public Library | CUR | Juvenile | Searching... Unknown |
Book | Searching... Cabell County Public Library | CUR | Juvenile | Searching... Unknown |
Book | Searching... Cabell County Public Library | CUR | Juvenile | Searching... Unknown |
Book | Searching... Gallaher Village Public Library | JF NEWBERY 2000 | Juvenile | Searching... Unknown |
Book | Searching... Gallaher Village Public Library | JF NEWBERY 2000 | Juvenile | Searching... Unknown |
Book | Searching... Gallaher Village Public Library | JF NEWBERY 2000 | Juvenile | Searching... Unknown |
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Book | Searching... Logan Area Public Library | JF | Young Adult | Searching... Unknown |
Book | Searching... Logan Area Public Library | JF CURTIS | Juvenile | Searching... Unknown |
Paperback | Searching... Matewan Public Library | JF | Juvenile | Searching... Unknown |
Book | Searching... Milton Public Library | JF 2003 BATTLE OF THE BOOKS | Juvenile | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
The Newbery Medal and Coretta Scott King Award-winning classic about a boy who decides to hit the road to find his father--from Christopher Paul Curtis, recipient of the Coretta Scott King-Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement.
It's 1936, in Flint, Michigan. Times may be hard, and ten-year-old Bud may be a motherless boy on the run, but Bud's got a few things going for him:
1. He has his own suitcase full of special things.
2. He's the author of Bud Caldwell's Rules and Things for Having a Funner Life and Making a Better Liar Out of Yourself .
3. His momma never told him who his father was, but she left a clue: flyers advertising Herman E. Calloway and his famous band, the Dusky Devastators of the Depression!!!!!!
Bud's got an idea that those flyers will lead him to his father. Once he decides to hit the road to find this mystery man, nothing can stop him--not hunger, not fear, not vampires, not even Herman E. Calloway himself.
BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR:
The New York Times
School Library Journal
Publishers Weekly
"[A] powerfully felt novel." -- The New York Times
"Will keep readers engrossed from first page to last." -- Publishers Weekly , Starred
"Curtis writes with a razor-sharp intelligence that grabs the reader by the heart and never lets go. . . . This highly recommended title [is] at the top of the list of books to be read again and again." -- Voice of Youth Advocates , Starred
Author Notes
Newbery Medal-winning children's book author Christopher Paul Curtis was born in Flint, Michigan on May 10, 1953 and graduated from The University of Michigan. While there he won the Avery and Jules Hopwood Prizes for poetry and a draft of one of his early books. Curtis spent thirteen years on an assembly line hanging car doors.
His story The Watsons Go to Birmingham-1963 received a Newbery Honor and a Coretta Scott King Honor, and Bud, Not Buddy became the first novel to win both of these awards. Elijah of Buxton received the 2008 Scott O'Dell Historical Fiction Award, the Coretta Scott King Award, and a Newbery Honor. Curtis also won the 2009 Anne V. Zarrow Award for Young Readers' Literature.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
A 10-year-old boy in Depression-era Michigan sets out to find the man he believes to be his father. "While the harshness of Bud's circumstances are authentically depicted, Curtis imbues them with an aura of hope, and he makes readers laugh even when he sets up the most daunting scenarios," said PW in our Best Books citation. Ages 9-12. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
(Intermediate) In a story that's as far-fetched as it is irresistible, and as classic as it is immediate, a deserving orphan boy finds a home. It's the Depression, and Bud (not Buddy) is ten and has been on his own since his mother died when he was six. In and out of the Flint, Michigan, children's home and foster homes ever since, Bud decides to take off and find his father after a particularly terrible, though riotously recounted, evening with his latest foster family. Helped only by a few clues his mother left him, and his own mental list of ""Rules and Things for Having a Funner Life and Making a Better Liar Out of Yourself,"" Bud makes his way to a food pantry, then to the library to do some research (only to find that his beloved librarian, one Charlemae Rollins, has moved to Chicago), and finally to the local Hooverville where he just misses hopping a freight to Chicago. Undaunted, he decides to walk to Grand Rapids, where he hopes his father, the bandleader Herman E. Calloway, will be. Lefty Lewis, the kindly union man who gives Bud a lift, is not the first benevolent presence to help the boy on his way, nor will he be the last. There's a bit of the Little Rascals in Bud, and a bit more of Shirley Temple as his kind heart and ingenuous ways bring tears to the eyes of the crustiest of old men-not his father, but close enough. But Bud's fresh voice keeps the senti-mentality to a reasonable simmer, and the story zips along in step with Bud's own panache. r.s. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
Gr. 4^-6. Bud, 10, is on the run from the orphanage and from yet another mean foster family. His mother died when he was 6, and he wants to find his father. Set in Michigan during the Great Depression, this is an Oliver Twist kind of foundling story, but it's told with affectionate comedy, like the first part of Curtis' The Watsons Go to Birmingham (1995). On his journey, Bud finds danger and violence (most of it treated as farce), but more often, he finds kindness--in the food line, in the library, in the Hooverville squatter camp, on the road--until he discovers who he is and where he belongs. Told in the boy's naive, desperate voice, with lots of examples of his survival tactics ("Rules and Things for Having a Funner Life and Making a Better Liar out of Yourself"), this will make a great read-aloud. Curtis says in an afterword that some of the characters are based on real people, including his own grandfathers, so it's not surprising that the rich blend of tall tale, slapstick, sorrow, and sweetness has the wry, teasing warmth of family folklore. --Hazel Rochman
School Library Journal Review
Gr 4-7-When 10-year-old Bud Caldwell runs away from his new foster home, he realizes he has nowhere to go but to search for the father he has never known: a legendary jazz musician advertised on some old posters his deceased mother had kept. A friendly stranger picks him up on the road in the middle of the night and deposits him in Grand Rapids, MI, with Herman E. Calloway and his jazz band, but the man Bud was convinced was his father turns out to be old, cold, and cantankerous. Luckily, the band members are more welcoming; they take him in, put him to work, and begin to teach him to play an instrument. In a Victorian ending, Bud uses the rocks he has treasured from his childhood to prove his surprising relationship with Mr. Calloway. The lively humor contrasts with the grim details of the Depression-era setting and the particular difficulties faced by African Americans at that time. Bud is a plucky, engaging protagonist. Other characters are exaggerations: the good ones (the librarian and Pullman car porter who help him on his journey and the band members who embrace him) are totally open and supportive, while the villainous foster family finds particularly imaginative ways to torture their charge. However, readers will be so caught up in the adventure that they won't mind. Curtis has given a fresh, new look to a traditional orphan-finds-a-home story that would be a crackerjack read-aloud.-Kathleen Isaacs, Edmund Burke School, Washington, DC (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Library Journal Review
Gr 4-7-Motherless Bud shares his amusingly astute rules of life as he hits the road to find the jazz musician he believes is his father. A medley of characters brings Depression-era Michigan to life. (Sept.) (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.