Module 5 - Bud, Not Buddy

Summary:

Bud Caldwell is a young boy that is placed in an orphanage after his mother dies.  He’s was only six years old at the time.  He does not like living there but has no choice. Poor Bud is sent to live with all of these foster families.  They are not good experiences for him. The Collins family home does not prove to be any better than anywhere else he has lived. He is abused in the home and treated so differently.  Todd Collins proves to be particularly ugly to Bud by teasing him about bed wetting and just being plain mean to him.  In this home, he is forced to stay in the shed outside with hornets and other creepy things.  He eventually runs away.  But not before he gets Todd Collins back by dumping a glass of water on him in an attempt to make him think that he has wet his own bed.  Bud is in search of his real father.  His travels take him to Michigan where he believes a man named Herman E. Calloway is his father.  This man is in a band and it turns out in the end that this man is not his father but the father of his own mother.  This man turns out to be his grandfather instead.   


APA Reference:


Curtis, C. P. (1999). Bud, not buddy. New York, NY:  Random House, Inc.

My Impressions:

Oh books like this make me sad.  However, there was an element of humor in some parts which lightened up the terrors that Bud had to endure.  Bud was easy to identify with even if you were not an orphan.  Many people feel misplaced or lost.  Also it is not hard to find people that are willing to make you feel bad for no reason, which Bud seemed to run into often.  The best part about the book is when Bud decides to actually leave in pursuit of a blood relative instead of being swept completely away into the system.  Most kids just fall through the cracks along the way and he took it upon himself to break free from that.  He still went through some pretty tough times but it was nice to see some sort of resolution for a child that had gone through so much and at such a young age.

Professional Reviews:

Publishers Weekly Review

As in his Newbery Honor-winning debut, The Watsons Go to Birmingham--1963, Curtis draws on a remarkable and disarming mix of comedy and pathos, this time to describe the travails and adventures of a 10-year-old African-American orphan in Depression-era Michigan. Bud is fed up with the cruel treatment he has received at various foster homes, and after being locked up for the night in a shed with a swarm of angry hornets, he decides to run away. His goal: to reach the man he--on the flimsiest of evidence--believes to be his father, jazz musician Herman E. Calloway. Relying on his own ingenuity and good luck, Bud makes it to Grand Rapids, where his ""father"" owns a club. Calloway, who is much older and grouchier than Bud imagined, is none too thrilled to meet a boy claiming to be his long-lost son. It is the other members of his band--Steady Eddie, Mr. Jimmy, Doug the Thug, Doo-Doo Bug Cross, Dirty Deed Breed and motherly Miss Thomas--who make Bud feel like he has finally arrived home. While the grim conditions of the times and the harshness of Bud's circumstances are authentically depicted, Curtis shines on them an aura of hope and optimism. And even when he sets up a daunting scenario, he makes readers laugh--for example, mopping floors for the rejecting Calloway, Bud pretends the mop is ""that underwater boat in the book Momma read to me, Twenty Thousand Leaks Under the Sea."" Bud's journey, punctuated by Dickensian twists in plot and enlivened by a host of memorable personalities, will keep readers engrossed from first page to last. Ages 9-12. (Sept.) 

Publishers Weekly. (1999, September 6). Bud, not buddy (Book Review). Publishers Weekly. Retrieved from http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-385-32306-2

Library Uses:

a.       First this book would be great to use for story mapping.  Students could analyze the story and identify the characters, plot and setting.  Then they could identify the conflict and resolutions within the story.

b.      This would be an excellent example to use for discussing the current system in place for children with no home or family including shelters, orphanages and foster homes.