Bud, Not Buddy: 2000 Newbery Award Winner

The beginning of March 2014 I started a new undertaking: reading every single Newbery Medal Winner book. A number of them I have read in the past, but I am reading them with fresh eyes,and reviewing them for others. I am not reading them in order, as some will require some effort on my part to find them all.  Want to keep track of which books I read?  Check them out at Confessions of a Wannabe Reader!

Cover of the book - The image is used for identification purposes only under the fair use clause.

Bud Caldwell: The Boy on the Lam

"Rules and Things Number 39: The Older You Get the Worse Something Has to Be to Make You Cry"

At the height of the Great Depression, orphaned Bud Caldwell is ten years old and has lived in a number of different foster homes.   At least he did until he picked a fight with a foster brother and ran away.  His mother died when he was 6, and he doesn't know anything about his father, save that he was a musician, perhaps the famous musician Herman Calloway.  His mother had several flyers of Herman's bands. Carrying everything he owns in a beat up suitcase that he has to close with a piece of rope, Bud decides to head 120 miles on foot to Grand Rapids, Michigan, which is where Herman Calloway lives.  Along the way, he discovers that the rules he has established in his young life ring true, and that family is something that is made by more than just the bonds of blood.

I have read Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis several times, and the short book is very touching.  Its a story of longing and belonging.  Bud longs for his lost mother.  Herman Calloway longs for his lost daughter.  It is also a story of growing up in a very trying time, as the Great Depression touched many lives in very hard ways. Children were forced to grow up faster and accept responsibilities for themselves even when they were not mature enough to do so.  Unlike other books I had read about the Great Depression, like Moon over Manifest and No Promises in the Wind by Irene Hunt , this one was unique in that it was told from the viewpoint of an African American child instead.

Just as the story of the Great Depression was not neatly resolved, the ending of this novel is not resolved in a neat and tidy ending, but one is left hoping that there are good things coming to Bud.

Moon Over Manifest: 2011 Newbery Award

I have started a new undertaking: reading every single Newbery Medal Winner book.  A number of them I have read in the past, but I am reading them with fresh eyes,and reviewing them for others. I am not reading them in order, as some will require some effort on my part to find them all.

Cover of the book - The image is used for identification purposes only under the fair use clause.

Manifest: To Reveal or to Make Known

"If there is such a thing as a universal..... it's that there is power in a story."  

Twelve-year-old Abilene Tucker knows one thing for certain, even if everyone else doubts it; her father will return,at the end of summer to get her.  At the height of the Depression, Abilene is sent to the town of Manifest, Kansas to spend the summer with friends of her father.  She arrives in time for the last day of school and receives an assignment from the solitary schoolteacher: write a story.  Abilene spends the summer figuring out just what her story is, as well as finding out the story of the town of Manifest.  Throughout her journey, she learns that she is helping to heal a town, and that loving and being loved both leave scars.

I read Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool without knowing anything about either the book or the author.  Perhaps that was a good thing, because I did not have any notions about what I might be reading and were able to discover both the author's storytelling ability and the story itself..  The story spans two distinct times in American History, as it covers both the end of World War One and the Spanish influenza epidemic as well as the middle of the Great Depression, when people had given up hope.  Being a History buff, the stories that are woven through the main plot were fascinating and brought to life an era that is often times drab and dreary for me.

Needless to say, I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and was captivated until the end by the themes of hope and hopelessness, of belonging and loneliness, of the story.   Clare Vanderpool was able to tell a story that is universal.  Like Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, this story tells of heartbreak during the depression, but unlike the former, Moon Over Manifest was able to leave me feeling like something good is coming to the characters.  There is a power in this story.