Author: Christopher Paul Curtis
Illustrator: Cover by Barry David Marcus
Readability Score: Interest level=5, Grade Level Equivalent=5.2, Lexile=950L, DRA=50, Guided Reading=T
Genre: Fiction
Subgenre: Historical Fiction
Theme: Music, runaways, the Great Depression
Primary and Secondary Characters: Primary=Bud, Secondary=Herman E. Calloway, members of the jazz band, people Bud meets on the road
Awards: Newbery Medal winner, Coretta Scott King winner
Date of Publication: 1999
Publishing Company: Random House Publishing
ISBN Number: 0553494104
Summary: Bud has been without his mom for four years when he decides he has had enough. He leaves the limited security offered at the Home for orphaned boys and decides it is time to find his father. His mother died when he was six years old, and she left behind clues. These clues include rocks with writing on them and several ads for a musician named Herman E. Calloway and his band. Bud decides that this man must be his father and he travels to Grand Rapids, Michigan in order to find him. Along the way, Bud meets several people and finally ends up with Herman E. Calloway and his band. They take him in even though Herman does not believe that he is his father. All the pieces of the puzzle slowly come together when Bud sees rocks that have writing on them in Herman's car. After questioning Bud about the rocks that he has been carrying with him that are similar to Herman's, they realize that Bud is Herman's grandson. The band presents Bud with his own band name as well as a saxophone, and he finally feels like he is home.
Applications for Teaching: This would be a good book to accompany lessons on the Great Depression as well as the history of jazz music in the early nineteen hundreds. Once Bud starts living with the band, the author introduces elements such as figurative language and onimonipea to his writing. Mature themes such as running away, foster care, and death are addressed within this story.
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