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Garden Heights

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Bud, Not Buddy — Christopher Paul Curtis
Garden Heights · Independent Novel Study

Bud, Not Buddy

a novel by Christopher Paul Curtis
Flint, Michigan, 1936. Ten-year-old Bud Caldwell — Bud, not Buddy — is a motherless orphan on the run from a cruel foster home, with nothing but a battered suitcase of his dead mother’s keepsakes: a blanket, a photo, some rocks marked with strange writing, and a stack of flyers for a bandleader named Herman E. Calloway. Certain that Calloway must be his father, Bud sets out across Depression-era Michigan — dodging railroad guards, sharing a Hooverville’s stew, and trusting a Pullman porter in the dark — to find the family he aches for, and the surprising truth waiting in a box of rocks. Christopher Paul Curtis’s Newbery Medal and Coretta Scott King Award winner (2000) is one of the great American stories of the Great Depression. These 8 Part workbooks cover the full novel, with vocabulary, comprehension, literary analysis, Think Deeper reasoning, SAT® & TOEFL®-style practice, and writing, all built on real-world CLIL background.
Level 4Newbery Medal 2000Interactive & auto-gradedCLIL-based
Library  ›  Bud, Not Buddy
Level 4 · Strong ReadersUS Grade 5Lexile 950LAR (ATOS) 5.0 · Newbery Medal (2000)
📖 Get the right book: our workbooks follow the Yearling — Random House (paperback) edition — ISBN 9780553494105. All recommended editions →
Subject Personalities
The real-world subjects this novel study leans into — the depth behind every Knowledge Bank and reading passage.
PRIMARY LENS
🏦 The Great Depression
Orphans and foster care, Hoovervilles, riding the rails, and Jim Crow — 1930s Black America under every chapter.
SUPPORTING
🚄 Porters & the Great Migration
The Pullman porters’ first Black union and the six-million-strong move north that built Bud’s Michigan.
SUPPORTING
🎷 Big-Band Jazz on the Road
The golden age of touring bands, and the family a band becomes — the home Bud is searching for.
Choose a Part
Progress
PT1
Part 1 · Chapters 1–2
The Home & the Amoses • Bud, Not Buddy • The Suitcase & the Shed
VocabularyComprehensionLiterary ElementsThink DeeperStandardized TestStandardized Test
Start →
PT2
Part 2 · Chapters 3–4
The Shed Escape • Revenge on Todd • Miss Hill Is Gone & the Rails
VocabularyComprehensionLiterary ElementsThink DeeperStandardized TestStandardized Test
Start →
PT3
Part 3 · Chapters 5–6
The Mission Breakfast • The Hooverville • Deza Malone
VocabularyComprehensionLiterary ElementsThink DeeperStandardized TestStandardized Test
Start →
PT4
Part 4 · Chapters 7–8
The Missed Train • The Plan • Walking to Grand Rapids
VocabularyComprehensionLiterary ElementsThink DeeperStandardized TestStandardized Test
Start →
PT5
Part 5 · Chapters 9–10
A Ride in the Dark • Lefty Lewis • The Vampire That Wasn’t
VocabularyComprehensionLiterary ElementsThink DeeperStandardized TestStandardized Test
Start →
PT6
Part 6 · Chapters 11–12
A Real Breakfast • Meeting Calloway • Miss Thomas & the Band
VocabularyComprehensionLiterary ElementsThink DeeperStandardized TestStandardized Test
Start →
PT7
Part 7 · Chapters 13–15
Sleepy LaBone • Grand Calloway Station • The Matching Rocks
VocabularyComprehensionLiterary ElementsThink DeeperStandardized TestStandardized Test
Start →
PT8
Part 8 · Ch 16–19 & Afterword
The Truth in the Rocks • Grandfather, Not Father • The Saxophone
VocabularyComprehensionLiterary ElementsThink DeeperStandardized TestStandardized TestReport Card
Start →
📄 Printable Teacher & Student PDFs — see all Workbook PDFs →