Bud, Not Buddy

Curtis, Christopher Paul (1999). Bud, Not Buddy. New York: Delacorte. ISBN 0-385-32306-9.

Bud, Not Buddy is a rarity – a laugh-out-loud funny Newbery winner. Bud is a vibrant character who stays firmly on the bright side of his challenging circumstances, and his “rules” for life, sprinkled throughout the first-person narrative, are both funny and profound.

It’s the middle of the Great Depression, and Bud is being sent to yet another foster home. His mother is dead, but he’s convinced that his father is the great African-American musican Herman Calloway, leader of the Dusky Devastators of the Depression!!!!!! (Six exclamation points come with the name, at least on the flyer that Bud uses as a clue.) Bud runs away to track down his father, and then actually does find Herman Calloway and his band. There’s kindness, misunderstandings (often hilarious), and of course, great music. Any depression I might have been feeling was definitely devastated by the time I finished the book!

Curtis does an excellent job of staying in Bud’s point of view yet still explaining things that modern readers might not understand. Of course segregation is a fact of life to Bud, and Curtis demonstrates it through details that Bud would genuinely be expected to notice and comment on, not things that are so familiar to him that he wouldn’t mention them. In the process, Curtis brings home not only the reality of racism but the ingenuity that it took to overcome it – by strategems like sending the one white band member to book gigs for white audiences who would refuse to hire the band if they knew they were black.

One of the best things about this book is that two of the most interesting characters – Negro Baseball League pitcher Lefty Lewis and Herman Calloway himself – are based on Curtis’ maternal and paternal grandfathers. In an afterword, Curtis tells their real-life stories and shares photos of the men (and the Dusky Devastators of the Depression!!!!!!, the real name of Curtis’ grandfather’s actual band). Knowing that a search into family history has the potential to turn up such great stories is bound to make at least some readers of this book interested in finding out more about their own families.

Bud, Not Buddy is a Publisher’s Weekly Best Book. PW says, "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.”

I would pair this book with The Journal of Biddy Owens by Walter Dean Meyers (from the My Name is America series) for readers who want to know more about the Negro Leagues and read about another optimistic, resourceful hero like Bud.

Publisher’s Weekly. Qtd. in Amazon.com. http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/0440413281/ref=s9_asin_title_3-hf_favarpcbss_2238_p/103-0423122-5982232?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-1&pf_rd_r=10CT73B2PE3DC8NQVMT4&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=278240701&pf_rd_i=507846.