Bud, Not Buddy 五年2班  戚怀少 严杰燊

                                                   Bud, Not Buddy

五（2）班  戚怀少 严杰燊

We have been reading Bud,Not Buddy recently, and have some words and comments to share.

It’s a book written by C. P. Curtis who was the winner of the Newbery Medal & the Coretta Scott King Award. This book tells us a touching and meaningful orphan-finds-a-home story that happened in Michigan State in 1936. The main character is a ten year old black boy named BUD (not BUDDY that somebody tended to unconcernedly or ironically call him) who had never seen his father from infancy and lost his mother at six, and he tried to find his father all the way after running away from his foster family. However he found instead his grandfather who operated a band, and lived there with all the band members. It’s the first book to receive both the Newbery Medal for excellence in American children's literature, and the Coretta Scott King Award, which is given to outstanding African-American authors in the same year of 2000.

Bud had a pretty horrible experience of changing teeth when he was six years old (in chapter 1). When we were around six, and our first tooth loosened, we got immediate care from our parents, and they would take us to the dentist if necessary. Sometimes when the dentist pulled out the tooth, mum bought us ice-creams. We were happy, and felt so sorry to know that Bud was scared when he lost his teeth.

When Herman E. Calloway and Bud first met (in chapter 13), they didn’t immediately get along. Because they had never met each other before, and his grandfather caught a bad first impression of Bud that he was a poorly appeared and foolishly behaved kid. It's unfair to Bud. In our daily life, most people do think that you shouldn’t decide what a person is like based on your first impression. However it happens more often in the real world for people to make quick judge yet slow understanding than they would like to admit. Sometimes it costs a leg and an arm for people to make quick judge of other people, as we can see that in the worldly spread ongoing Black Lives Matter movement.

This book is on the required reading list for the fifth graders in some Massachusetts primary schools. It is about racism and justice, and we think it is a very good book. Yet we figure out that it's a little challenging for us Chinese fifth graders. Instead we would like to recommend it to be read at sixth grade or at middle school. It is worthy reading twice. So if you still have not read it, would you like to start browsing a page or two right this moment today? You would probably love reading it although it may take you some time and rack some of your BRAIN CELLS to catch the point at the beginning.

The book tells a sad story with a somewhat happy ending. We can predict that when the two, Bud and Herman, get to know each other well, they will love each other.