Bud, Not Buddy

by

Christopher Paul Curtis

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Themes and Colors
Economic Insecurity and Community Theme Icon
Children vs. Adults Theme Icon
Resourcefulness Theme Icon
Family and Home  Theme Icon
Race and Racism Theme Icon
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Bud, Not Buddy, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Children vs. Adults Theme Icon

Bud, Not Buddy follows the perspective of 10-year-old Bud Caldwell as he navigates the world of adults armed only with his suitcase and list of rules he created himself. As an orphan on the run, Bud appears to have a tense relationship with adults, whom he frequently views skeptically. Oftentimes he relies on his rules, “Bud Caldwell’s Rules and Things to Have a Funner Life and Make a Better Liar Out of Yourself,” to outsmart adults, to find out more information about them than they would otherwise be willing to share, and to build a database of solutions for the problems adults throw at him. These rules operate as Bud’s guardian, in absence of a true parental figure, and give him advice on the best course of action to take when interacting with an adult. Bud even at one point refers to himself as “just about a man,” or on the cusp of manhood, suggesting that his knowledge of the adult world puts him on the same footing as adults despite his age. Curtis suggests that Bud’s innocent and nascent curiosity and understanding of the world of “grown folks” is what he uses to fill the hole left by his mother. By raising himself with his own rules and using those guiding principles to stand up to adults and hold his own, Bud attempts to prove to himself and others that he can raise himself better than any living adult can. Thus, Curtis suggests that Bud’s rules are a defense mechanism, a way of feeling his mother’s absence less while dealing with his constantly changing circumstances.

Bud’s ability to use his rules to navigate the adult world is on full display when he outsmarts the Amoses and ensures that they’ll “punish” him by sending him back to the Home, which is what he secretly wants. With a clever appeal to reverse psychology, Bud responds to their threats to send him back to the Home by begging them to “give [him] another chance […] [to] do a whole lot better,” despite the fact that “going back to the Home was just what [he] wanted to do.” While on the surface it looks like the Amoses are the ones making the decision, it is really Bud calling the shots from behind the scenes by manipulating the Amoses, as if he is the adult in the encounter. He uses “rule 118” to remind himself that “you have to give adults something that they think they can use to hurt you by taking it away. That way they might not take something away that you really do want.” Thus, he dangles getting sent back to the Home under the Amoses’ nose to ensure that that is exactly what they’ll do to punish him. Here, Bud fully takes on the role of the adult. As a child would turn to a guardian, Bud consults himself and his rules to impart wisdom and to respond to the challenges he faces in the Amoses’ household by applying old rules to new situations.

Bud’s ability to adapt his rules for unpredictable situations comes in handy once again when he falls asleep in Lefty Lewis’s care on their way to Grand Rapids. Rather than panic when he wakes up and doesn’t remember where he is, Bud once again turns to his rules to figure out how to use the situation to his advantage, get information from the adults, and decide the best course of action for himself. Bud wakes up to woman’s voice, but instead of opening his eyes, he pretends that he is asleep. As he pretends, he remembers “rule 29”: “When you wake up and don’t know for sure where you’re at and there’s a bunch of people standing around you, it’s best to pretend you’re still asleep until you can figure out what’s going on and what you should do.” Again, Bud’s rules are oriented towards what he should do in the situation as if he is the one with the deciding power. He treats the adults in the room as if they are a merely a means to an end instead of the ones with the true power. In this way he subtly inverts the child/adult relationship and becomes the authority figure in the room, leaving the true adults who are present, Lefty Lewis and Mrs. Sleet, to sit on the sidelines while he decides for himself what is best. Bud’s decision to stay quiet and listen is the reason he is able to find out that Herman E. Calloway was married once before and that Bud may have a sister. Without his mother to impart this information to Bud about his family history, Bud is left with his experiences and his rules to fend for himself, find out the information he needs to survive, and to make the decision to leave Flint for Grand Rapids.

Having been forced to grow up beyond his years in the foster care system, Bud learns how to parent himself better than any adult. As many of the adults in his life have treated him unfairly—particularly the Amoses and former foster parents—becoming the adult in the room becomes a matter of survival. Curtis suggests that if Bud were to relegate jurisdiction over himself to the adults in the room, he would be doomed. For that reason, Bud must hold his own.

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Children vs. Adults Quotes in Bud, Not Buddy

Below you will find the important quotes in Bud, Not Buddy related to the theme of Children vs. Adults.
Chapter 1 Quotes

This was the third foster home I was going to and I’m used to packing up and leaving, but it still surprises me that there are always a few seconds, right after they tell you you’ve 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 doesn’t happen to me anymore, I don’t know when it first happened, but it seems like my eyes don’t cry no more.

Related Characters: Bud Caldwell (speaker)
Related Symbols: The Home
Page Number: 3
Explanation and Analysis:

It’s at six that grown folks don’t think you’re a cute little kid anymore, they talk to you and expect that you understand everything they mean. And you’d best understand too, if you aren’t looking for some real trouble, ‘cause it’s around six that grown folks stop giving you little swats and taps and jump clean up to giving you slugs that’ll 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.

Related Characters: Bud Caldwell (speaker)
Related Symbols: The Home
Page Number: 4-5
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 2 Quotes

There comes a time when you’re losing a fight that it just doesn’t make sense to keep on fighting. It’s not that you’re being a quitter, it’s just that you’ve got the sense to know when enough is enough.

I was having this thought because Todd Amos was hitting me so hard and fast that I knew that the blood squiring out of my nose was only the beginning of a whole long list of bad things that were about to happen to me.

Related Characters: Bud Caldwell (speaker), Todd Amos
Page Number: 9
Explanation and Analysis:

RULES AND THINGS NUMBER 118

You have to give adults something that they think they can use to hurt you by taking it away. That way they might not take something away that you really do want. Unless they’re crazy or real stupid they won’t take everything because if they did they wouldn’t have anything to hold over your head to hurt you with later.

Related Characters: Bud Caldwell (speaker), Mrs. Amos
Related Symbols: The Home
Page Number: 18
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3 Quotes

After while the stings and fish-guard bite quit hurting so much. I started getting madder and madder. I was mad at the Amoses, but most of all I was mad at me for believing there really was a vampire in the shed and for getting trapped like this where there wasn’t anybody who cared what happened to me.

Related Characters: Bud Caldwell (speaker), Mrs. Amos, Todd Amos, Mr. Amos
Page Number: 29
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4 Quotes

I can’t all the way blame Todd for giving me trouble, though. If I had a regular home with a mother and father, I wouldn’t be too happy about other kids living in my house either. Being unhappy about it is one thing but torturing the kids who are there even though they don’t want to be is another. It was my job to make sure other kids who didn’t know where their mothers and fathers were didn’t have to put up with Todd.

Related Characters: Bud Caldwell (speaker), Todd Amos
Page Number: 32
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

She’d tell me, “Especially don’t you ever let anyone call you Buddy, I may have some problems but being stupid isn’t one of them. I would’ve added that dy onto the end of your name if I intended for it to be there […] Your name is Bud, period.

Related Characters: Momma / Angela Janet Caldwell (speaker), Bud Caldwell
Page Number: 41
Explanation and Analysis:

It’s funny how now that I’m ten years old and just about a man I can see how Momma was so wrong. She was wrong because she probably should’ve told me the things she thought I was too young to hear, because now that she’s gone I’ll never know what they were. Even if I was too young back then I could’ve rememorized them and used them when I did need help, like right now.

Related Characters: Bud Caldwell (speaker), Momma / Angela Janet Caldwell
Page Number: 43
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

“I’m sorry, Bud, I didn’t mean to scare you, but everybody knows how you like to sleep with that knife open so I figured I’d best grab holt of you so’s you wouldn’t wake up slicing nobody.”

Related Characters: Bugs (speaker), Bud Caldwell
Related Symbols: The Home
Page Number: 61
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 12 Quotes

I knew if I was a regular kid I’d be crying buckets of tears now, I didn’t want these men to think I was a baby, so I was real glad that my eyes don’t cry no more. My nose plugged up and a little growl came out of my mouth but I kept my finger pointed, cleared my throat and said, “I know it’s you.”

Related Characters: Bud Caldwell (speaker), Herman E. Calloway
Related Symbols: The Flyers
Page Number: 148
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14 Quotes

I was smiling and laughing and busting my gut so much that I got carried away and some rusty old valve squeaked open in me then…woop, zoop, sloop…tears started jumping out of my eyes so hard that I had to cover my face with the big red and white napkin that was on the table.

Related Characters: Bud Caldwell (speaker)
Page Number: 172
Explanation and Analysis:

I wasn’t sure if it was her lips or her hand, but something whispered to me in a language that I didn’t have any trouble understanding, it said, “Go ahead and cry, Bud, you’re home.”

Related Characters: Bud Caldwell (speaker), Miss Thomas (speaker)
Page Number: 174
Explanation and Analysis: