Bud, Not Buddy

Bud, Not Buddy follows a ten-year-old boy through Depression-era Flint, Michigan, in 1936, as he sets out to find his father, carrying nothing but a beat-up suitcase of keepsakes and a homemade rulebook he's titled "Bud Caldwell's Rules and Things for Having a Funner Life and Making a Better Liar Out of Yourself." Christopher Paul Curtis, recipient of the Coretta Scott King-Virginia Hamilton Award for lifetime achievement, won both the Newbery Medal and the Coretta Scott King Award for this book. Delacorte's edition runs 258 pages, is aimed at ages 6 to 10, and holds a 4-star average from 71 Google ratings.

Bud's rulebook is the clever device that carries most of the humor, a running list of hard-won, slightly absurd life lessons that reveal how much a kid has had to figure out on his own. Curtis never undersells how hard Bud's circumstances are, but lets Bud's resourceful, stubbornly hopeful voice carry the weight instead of the history lesson. That balance is what makes the Depression setting land for a young reader instead of feeling like homework: the historical detail comes through Bud's specific, personal problems, one suitcase and one rule at a time. A strong pick for a kid who likes an underdog with a plan, even when the plan is clearly being made up as he goes.