Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis

Newbery Award/Honor 1 of 2

Bud, Not Buddy is about Bud trying to find his father. The setting for this story was during the Great Depression in Flint and Grand Rapids, Michigan. The Great Depression was a time when many children were left at orphanages or left to fend for themselves because their parents could not feed them. This was a time when there were soup kitchens called missions set up to feed the many starving people; when shantytowns called Hoovervilles were popping up everywhere; and people helped each other when they were able. When Bud’s mother died, Bud went to stay at an orphanage (the Home). From the Home Bud went into foster care. When he was beaten up by his foster brother and locked in a shed by his foster parents, he escaped and ran away. This is when Bud decided to act on the idea of finding his father. The road to finding his father took Bud to the mission for free food, to the library for help, to Flint’s Hooverville to hop a train to the west, to walking from Flint to Grand Rapids, and finally to meeting Lefty Lewis and getting a ride to where he could find Herman E. Calloway. This is where and when Bud became a member of Herman E. Calloway’s band and found out that this old man was his grandfather. I liked the historical aspect of this book. It gave some insight of how some people survived during the Great Depression. It was simple to read and easy to understand. Reading this story made it easy to visualize what the Great Depression was like and what Bud went through to find where he belonged. Another great book by Christopher Paul Curits is The Watsons Go to Birmingham – 1963.