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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Aug 1999, 245 pages
Paperback:
Jan 2002, 245 pages
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.
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:
Bud's got an idea that those flyers will lead him to his father. Once he decides to hit the road and find this mystery man, nothing can stop him--not hunger, not fear, not vampires, not even Herman E. Calloway himself.
Bud, Not Buddy is full of laugh-out-loud humor and wonderful characters, hitting the high notes of jazz and sounding the deeper tones of the Great Depression. Once again Christopher Paul Curtis, author of the award-winning novel The Watsons Go to Birmingham--1963, takes readers on a heartwarming and unforgettable journey.
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 they'd found a foster home for somebody or somebody was about to be 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, "It's Bud, not Buddy, ma'am."
She put her hand on my shoulder and took me out of line. Then she pulled Jerry, one of the littler boys, over. "Aren't 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 me the same thing I was thinking. "Together?"
She said, "why, no. Jerry, you'll be in a family with three little girls--"
Jerry looked like he'd just found ...
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