Bud, Not Buddy

"It's funny how ideas are, in a lot of ways they're just like seeds. Both of them start real, real small and then … woop, zoop, sloop … before you can say Jack Robinson, they've gone and grown a lot bigger than you ever thought they could." So figures scrappy 10-year-old philosopher Bud—"not Buddy"—Caldwell, an orphan on the run from abusive foster homes and Hoovervilles in 1930s Michigan. And the idea that's planted itself in his head is that Herman E. Calloway, standup-bass player for the Dusky Devastators of the Depression, is his father.

Guided only by a flier for one of Calloway's shows—a small, blue poster that had mysteriously upset his mother shortly before she died—Bud sets off to track down his supposed dad, a man he's never laid eyes on. And, being 10, Bud-not-Buddy gets into all sorts of trouble along the way, barely escaping a monster-infested woodshed, stealing a vampire's car, and even getting tricked into "busting slob with a real live girl."

Christopher Paul Curtis, author of The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963, once again exhibits his skill for capturing the language and feel of an era and creates an authentic, touching, often hilarious voice in little Bud.