Bud, Not Buddy - $5.17 - Curtis, Christopher Paul - 9780440413288

Bud, Not Buddy
Curtis, Christopher Paul
Paperback
List Price: ~~$6.99~~
booksXYZ price: $5.17
$0.26 of your order (5%) will be donated to the school of your choice.

VIEW MORE BOOKS LIKE THIS ONE

BOOK SUMMARY
Its 1936, in Flint, Michigan, and when 10-year-old Bud decides to hit the road to find his father, nothing can stop him.

Submit a book review

BOOK EXCERPTS
CHAPTER 1

Here we go again. We were all standing in line waiting for breakfast when one of the caseworkers came in and tap-tap-tapped down the line. Uh-oh, this meant bad news, either theyd found a foster home for somebody or somebody was about to get paddled. All the kids watched the woman as she moved along the line, her high-heeled shoes sounding like little firecrackers going off on the wooden floor.

Shoot! She stopped at me and said, Are you Buddy Caldwell?

I said, Its Bud, not Buddy, maam.

She put her hand on my shoulder and took me out of line. Then she pulled Jerry, one of the littler boys, over. Arent you Jerry Clark? He nodded.

Boys, good news! Now that the school year has ended, you both have been accepted in new temporary-care homes starting this afternoon!

Jerry asked the same thing I was thinking. Together?

She said, Why, no. Jerry, youll be in a family with three little girls . . .

Jerry looked like hed just found out they were going to dip him in a pot of boiling milk.

. . . and Bud . . . She looked at some papers she was holding. Oh, yes, the Amoses, youll be with Mr. and Mrs. Amos and their son, whos twelve years old, that makes him just two years older than you, doesnt it, Bud?

Yes, maam.

She said, Im sure youll both be very happy.

Me and Jerry looked at each other.

The woman said, Now, now, boys, no need to look so glum. I know you dont understand what it means, but theres a depression going on all over this country. People cant find jobs and these are very, very difficult times for everybody. Weve been lucky enough to find two wonderful families whove opened their doors for you. I think its best that we show our new foster families that were very . . .

She dragged out the word very, waiting for us to finish her sentence for her.

Jerry said, Cheerful, helpful and grateful. I moved my lips and mumbled.

She smiled and said, Unfortunately, you wont have time for breakfast. Ill have a couple of pieces of fruit put in a bag. In the meantime go to the sleep room and strip your beds and gather all of your things.

Here we go again. I felt like I was walking in my sleep as I followed Jerry back to the room where all the boys beds were jim-jammed together. This was the third foster home I was going to and Im used to packing up and leaving, but it still surprises me that there are always a few seconds, right after they tell you youve got to go, when my nose gets all runny and my throat gets all choky and my eyes get all sting-y. But the tears coming out doesnt happen to me anymore, I dont know when it first happened, but it seems like my eyes dont cry no more.

Jerry sat on his bed and I could tell that he was losing the fight not to cry. Tears were popping out of his eyes and slipping down his cheeks.

I sat down next to him and said, I know being in a house with three girls sounds terrible, Jerry, but its a lot better than being with a boy whos a couple of years older than you. Im the one whos going to have problems. A older boy is going to want to fight, but those little girls are going to treat you real good. Theyre going to treat you like some kind of special pet or something.

Jerry said, You really think so?

I said, Id trade you in a minute. The worst thing thats going to happen to you is that theyre going to make you play house a lot. Theyll probably make you be the baby and will hug you and do this kind of junk to you. I tickled Jerry under his chin and said, Ga-ga goo-goo, baby-waby.

Jerry couldnt help but smile. I said, Youre going to be great.

Jerry looked like he wasnt so scared anymore so I went over to my bed and started getting ready.

Even though it was me who was in a lot of trouble I couldnt help but feel sorry for Jerry. Not only because he was going to have to live around three girls, but also because being six is a real rough age to be at. Most folks think you start to be a real adult when youre fifteen or sixteen years old, but thats not true, it really starts when youre around six.

Its at six that grown folks dont think youre a cute little kid anymore, they talk to you and expect that you understand everything they mean. And youd best understand too, if you arent looking for some real trouble, cause its around six that grown folks stop giving you little swats and taps and jump clean up to giving you slugs thatll knock you right down and have you seeing stars in the middle of the day. The first foster home I was in taught me that real quick.

Six is a bad time too cause thats when some real scary things start to happen to your body, its around then that your teeth start coming a-loose in your mouth.

You wake up one morning and it seems like your tongue is the first one to notice that something strange is going on, cause as soon as you get up there it is pushing and rubbing up against one of your front teeth and Ill be doggoned if that tooth isnt the littlest bit wiggly.

At first you think its kind of funny, but the tooth keeps getting looser and looser and one day, in the middle of pushing the tooth back and forth and squinching your eyes shut, you pull it clean out. Its the scariest thing you can think of cause you lose control of your tongue at the same time and no matter how hard you try to stop it, it wont leave the new hole in your mouth alone, it keeps digging around in the spot where that tooth used to be.

You tell some adult about whats happening but all they do is say its normal. You cant be too sure, though, cause it shakes you up a whole lot more than grown folks think it does when perfectly good parts of your body commence to loosening up and falling off of you.

Unless youre as stupid as a lamppost youve got to wonder whats coming off next, your arm? Your leg? Your neck? Every morning when you wake up it seems a lot of your parts arent stuck on as good as they used to be.

Six is real tough. Thats how old I was when I came to live here in the Home. Thats how old I was when Momma died.

I folded the blanket and sheet and set them back on the mattress. Then I reached under the bed to get my suitcase. Most of the kids in the Home keep their things in a paper or cloth sack, but not me. I have my own suitcase.

I set it on the mattress and untied the twine that held it together. I did what I do every night before I go to sleep, I checked to make sure everything was there. The way therere more and more kids coming into the Home every day, I had to make sure no one had run off with any of my things.

First I pulled my blanket out and saw that everything was where it was supposed to be. At the bottom of my suitcase were the flyers. I took the blue flyer out and looked at it again.

The paper was starting to wear out from me looking at it so much but I liked checking to see if there was anything I hadnt noticed before. It was like something was telling me there was a message for me on this flyer but I didnt have the decoder ring to read what it was.

Across the top of the flyer writ in big black letters were the words limited engagement, then in little letters it said, Direct from an S.R.O. engagement in New York City. Underneath that in big letters again it said, herman e. calloway and the Dusky Devastators of the Depression!!!!!!

Those six exclamation points made it seem like this was the most important news anyone could think of, seems like youd have to be really great to deserve all of those exclamation points all stacked up in a row like that.

Next the paper said, Masters of the New Jazz, then in the middle of the flyer was a blurry picture of the man I have a real good suspicion about. Ive never met him, but I have a pretty good feeling that this guy must be my father.

In the picture hes standing next to a giant fiddle thats taller than him. It looks like its real heavy cause hes leaning up against it trying to hold it up. He looks like hes been doing this for a long time and he must be tired cause he has a droopy, dreamy look on his face. There are two men beside him, one playing drums and the other one blowing a horn.

It wasnt hard to see what the guy who must be my father was like just by looking at his picture. You could tell he was a real quiet, real friendly and smart man, he had one of those kind of faces. Underneath the picture someone had writ with a black fountain pen, One Night Only in Flint, Michigan, at the Luxurious Fifty Grand on Saturday June 16, 1932. 9 Until ?

I remember Momma bringing this flyer with her when she came from working one day, I remember because she got very upset when she put it on the supper table and kept looking at it and picking it up and putting it back and moving it around. I was only six then and couldnt understand why this one got her so upset, she kept four others that were a lot like it in her dressing table, but this one really got her jumpy. The only difference I could see between the blue one and the others was that the others didnt say anything about Flint on them.

I remember this blue one too cause it wasnt too long after she brought it home that I knocked on Mommas bedroom door, then found her.

I put the blue flyer back in the suitcase with the four older ones and put everything back in its place.

I went over to the big chest of drawers and took my other set of clothes out and put them in the suitcase too. I tied the twine back around my bag, then went and sat on Jerrys bed with him. Jerry mustve been thinking just as hard as I was cause neither one of us said nothing, we just sat close enough so that our shoulders were touching.

Here we go again.

AUTHOR BIO
Christopher Paul Curtis is the author of the Newbery Honorwinning The Watsons Go to Birmingham1963.

MORE BOOK INFO
ISBN: 0440413281
ISBN(13-digit): 9780440413288
Copyright: 2002
Dewey Decimal: [Fic]
Library of Congress: 2006540189
Book Publisher: Random House Childrens Books
Language: ENG
No. of Pages: 243
Paper Weight (lb): 0.4

If you like this book, you may also enjoy:


Little Divas	Emako Blue	Nightjohn
Boles, Philana Marie	Woods, Brenda	Paulsen, Gary/ Pinkney, Jerry (ILT)

Our mission...