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Bud, Not Buddy: (Newbery Medal Winner)

by Christopher Paul Curtis

A journey shaped by clues, resilience, and music

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Awards & Recognition

  • Award recognition

    Newbery Medal winner

    The metadata identifies the book as a Newbery Medal winner.

  • Author recognition

    Recipient of the Coretta Scott King-Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement

    The description identifies Christopher Paul Curtis as a recipient of this lifetime achievement award.

  • Critical praise

    Starred Voice of Youth Advocates review; “highly recommended”

    A starred review calls the book highly recommended and says it belongs at the top of the list of books to be rea...

AlbakiReads Editorial

A journey shaped by clues, resilience, and music

Set in Flint, Michigan, in 1936, the novel centers on ten-year-old Bud Caldwell’s search for the father he has never known. His mother left him flyers for bandleader Herman E. Calloway, giving Bud a lead to follow as he travels with a suitcase of treasured belongings and a set of personal rules. The Depression-era setting and the band flyers connect Bud’s family mystery to the world of traveling musicians, while his journey brings practical hardships and unexpected obstacles into the story. The premise combines a child’s search for family with questions of identity, resourcefulness, and how a handful of clues can shape a journey.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Children around ages 9–12 interested in historical fiction and adventure.
  • Readers who enjoy stories about a child searching for family and belonging.
  • Readers interested in music and Depression-era settings.

Themes

Family and belongingIdentity and self-relianceChildhood resilienceMusic and travel

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

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
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