Bud, Not Buddy

by

Christopher Paul Curtis

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Bud, Not Buddy: Chapter 1 Summary & Analysis

Summary
Analysis
A caseworker arrives as Bud Caldwell is in line for breakfast. Bud believes that her presence means that “either they’d found a foster home for somebody or somebody was about to get paddled.”
Bud immediately deciphers the caseworker’s presence, suggesting that he has had experience both being “paddled” and either going through foster homes himself or watching other people get shifted from home to home. Neither option seems to generate any particularly positive emotions from him.
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The caseworker stops right where Bud is in the line and asks him if his name is Buddy Caldwell. Bud responds that his name is “Bud, not Buddy.”
Echoing the novel’s title, Bud stops the caseworker from calling him anything other than Bud, a moment that reveals for the first time just how important his identity and name are to him.
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The caseworker takes Bud out of the breakfast line and pulls a “one of the littler boys,” Jerry Clark, out of line too. The woman says that she has good news for them: they both “have been accepted in new temporary-care homes starting [that] afternoon.”
As an orphan in the foster care system, Bud does not have a say in where his new home will be, when he must start living with his new family, or a sense of who the people are. This profound lack of agency begins to suggest that Bud is expendable within the system.
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While Jerry will be put in a home with three little girls, the caseworker reveals that Bud will be taken in by Mr. and Mrs. Amos and their 12-year-old son. The woman emphasizes that Bud and Jerry should both be happy with their assignments since the “depression going on all over this country” has made things difficult for everybody. For that reason, she hints that Bud and Jerry should be on their best behavior for their new foster families and be “cheerful, happy, and grateful,” as Jerry puts it for her.
Bud is pressured to be overjoyed by the revelation that he is fortunate enough to have new home at a time when the Great Depression is making life miserable for many people in the country. The caseworker seems to be reminding the boys that not only are they expendable, but that they are also essentially charity cases for their foster families. This message further promotes feelings of insecurity and unworthiness for the boys, making them feel like they are not allowed to express themselves in any way other than joy during a really difficult and lonely experience.
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As he makes his way to pack his things, Bud reveals that this will be his third foster home. Though his “nose gets all runny and [his] throat gets all choky and [his] eyes get all stingy” each time he goes to a new home, his “eyes don’t cry no more.”
Bud suggests that though he’s gotten the hang of being shuttled from place to place, it still affects him in surprising ways. His lack of tears may be an attempt at adapting to his volatile life, but he may also be numb to the experience of being in the foster care system.  But just because he’s stopped crying does not mean that he is incapable of feeling sad and isolated.
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Quotes
Jerry, however, does cry. This prompts Bud to console him by predicting that Jerry will be treated “like some kind of special pet” as the only boy living with three little girls. Bud, on the other hand, has to worry about living with an “older boy [that] is going to want to fight.” After cheering Jerry up and making sure he “wasn’t so scared anymore,” Bud finishes packing.
Bud functions as a parental figure for Jerry in this moment, in the absence of a guardian or counselor at the Home to prepare them for their new temporary homes. Bud appears to be comfortable with this parental role, though he does reveal that his fears for himself about living with an older boy.
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Bud reveals that he feels sorry for Jerry, even though Bud is the one destined for “a lot of trouble” by living with the older boy. He reveals that Jerry’s age is a “rough age to be at.” Bud denies that the ages of fifteen or sixteen are the beginning of adulthood, instead claiming that the age of six is the real start of adulthood. It is at this age “that adults talk to you and expect that you understand everything they mean.”
Bud’s care for Jerry continues as Bud reflects on his time as a six-year-old like Jerry. He suggests that he grew up in that year, more than he ever could as a teenager. Moreover, Bud reveals that this growth stemmed from the interactions he had with adults, who were impatient with him and his age.
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Quotes
It is also at this age that one’s body starts changing in scary ways. Once you lose a tooth, Bud says, you begin “to wonder what’s coming off next […] every morning when you wake up it seems a lot of your parts aren’t stuck on as good as they used to be.” Bud reveals that it is at the age of six that he lost Momma; it is also the age that he began his stay at the Home.
Bud also reflects on how scary and disorienting everything was when he was six—even his own body wasn’t impervious to change. To make matters worse, that disorientation was sharpened by losing his mother—who, given the fact that he’s now in the foster care system, was likely his primary guardian and caretaker—and being sent to an orphanage called the Home, a place that is only a “home,” in name.
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Finally, Bud pulls out his suitcase after revealing that he is one of the few kids who has a suitcase instead of a paper or cloth sack. From there, he checks to make sure that all his things are in the suitcase and no one has run off with his belongings, especially with “more and more kids coming into the Home every day.”
Bud’s first quiet moment with his suitcase is marked by his anxiety that everything in it might not be inside. The moment shows just how dear the suitcase and its belongings are to him. It also shows that he views the Home skeptically and doesn’t quite trust everyone in it not to steal.
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Next, Bud examines the flyers in his suitcase, particularly a blue one. The flyer has the words “Limited Engagement,” then “Direct from S.R.O. engagement in New York City.” Underneath that, it has the words “Herman E. Calloway and the Dusky Devastators of the Depression!!!!!!”
Bud’s anxiety about the security of his suitcase’s contents means that his few belongings—like these seemingly random flyers—are precious to him. “S.R.O.” is an acronym for “standing room only,” suggesting that these flyers are advertising a band’s show. The reference to “Devastators of the Depression” also reinforce that this book is set during the Great Depression.
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Bud reveals that the one of the flyers includes “Masters of New Jazz” as part of the description along with a blurry picture of a guy who Bud has “a pretty good feeling” is his father.
In holding on to these flyers, it seems that Bud hopes they provide a clue to tracking down his father and having a real family again. Bud carries this hope with him in his suitcase so that it is always with him regardless of where he is and whose temporary care he is in.
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Bud speculates that his “father” is “real quiet, real friendly and [a] smart man.” He also reveals that the flyer includes the lines “One Night Only in Flint, Michigan, at the Luxurious Fifty Grand on Saturday June 16, 1932. 9 Until ?”
Bud speculates on his father’s temperament, which makes his dreams of having a father feel more concrete.
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Bud remembers that his mother had been the one to bring the flyer home, though it had made her upset. He didn’t understand why, however, because to him it looked the same as the four other flyers she kept like it on her dressing table. Those ones, according to Buddy, differed only in the fact that they “didn’t say anything about Flint on them.” Bud reveals that shortly after she brought the flyer home, he “knocked on [her] bedroom door” and “found her” dead.
Bud’s flyers also appear to be closely tied with his last few memories of his mother—both right before she died and right after. Thus, the flyers appear to be even more symbolic to Bud as they are literally one of the last things she touched that meant something to her. It’s possible that Bud thinks uncovering the “secret” of the flyers will bring them even closer together.
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Bud finishes reminiscing and closes up his suitcase after he finishes packing. He sits on the bed with Jerry, who he thinks “must’ve been thinking just as hard as [Bud] was” because of how quiet he was. Together they wait with their “shoulders touching” for what comes next.
Bud and Jerry share a moment of comradery as they await their uncertain future. The image of their shoulders touching suggests that they are a united front—it’s them versus the adult world of the foster care system.
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