BookBright
ABOUT THE BOOK
NO SPOILERSTen-year-old Bud Caldwell has been bouncing through Michigan's foster care system since his mother died four years ago, and his most prized possessions are a worn suitcase, five old flyers advertising a jazz bandleader named Herman E. Calloway, and a handful of smooth rocks with mysterious writing on them. When his newest foster family locks him in a shed full of hornets and a pugnacious boy named Todd makes his life miserable, Bud decides enough is enough. Armed with his mother's keepsakes and a conviction that Herman E. Calloway must be his father, Bud sets out alone across Depression-era Michigan to find the man and claim the family he's never had.
Free Battle of the Books questions for Bud, Not Buddy
SPOILERSEvery one of these has the same answer, and that is the point. In a real battle the question is read aloud with a dozen other books in play, and students have a few seconds to place it. Here is what a battle might ask about Bud, Not Buddy. Use them as a quiz, a trivia round, or BOTB practice.
Where in the book they come from
- Early in the book
In what book does a boy hide a shotgun on a back porch before pranking his foster family?
✓ Answer
Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis
Bud finds the Amoses' shotgun leaning against the icebox and moves it outside to a corner where they cannot see it. He worries they would shoot him in revenge if they woke up during his prank.
- First half
In what book does a girl named Deza Malone share a kiss while washing dishes by a creek?
✓ Answer
Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis
Deza, a girl from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, asks Bud if he has ever kissed a girl. He gives her his first real kiss while they dry tin can plates by Thread Crick, and her dimple haunts his dreams.
- First half
In what book does a man in a chauffeur's cap offer a runaway boy a baloney sandwich and red pop?
✓ Answer
Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis
Lefty Lewis spots the runaway boy walking near Owosso at two thirty in the morning. He uses food and patience to coax him out from the bushes, beginning the friendship that delivers the boy safely to Grand Rapids.
- Second half
In what book does a singer with nine diamond rings rub her fingers across a boy's stinging cheek?
✓ Answer
Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis
Miss Thomas, the band's vocalist, greets the runaway boy at the Sweet Pea restaurant and notices the hornet stings on his face. Her ringed fingers and gentle attention contrast with the cold welcome the boy got from Herman E. Calloway.
- Second half
In what book does a boy worry monsters will come from closets in a dead girl's bedroom?
✓ Answer
Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis
On his first night at Grand Calloway Station, the boy is given a bedroom and told the girl who used to sleep there is gone. Convinced "gone" means dead, he jams the room's only chair under one closet doorknob and plans to shove the dressing table against the other.
- Near the end
In what book does a boy mop a club floor while pretending it is a sinking submarine?
✓ Answer
Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis
Forced to clean the Log Cabin a second time, the boy turns the chore into a game by pretending the mop is Captain Nemo's underwater boat. He tries to plug imaginary leaks before letting the mop sink with all the soap suds.
