Bound To Stay Bound

School Library Journal - 09/01/1999 Gr 4-7-When 10-year-old Bud Caldwell runs away from his new foster home, he realizes he has nowhere to go but to search for the father he has never known: a legendary jazz musician advertised on some old posters his deceased mother had kept. A friendly stranger picks him up on the road in the middle of the night and deposits him in Grand Rapids, MI, with Herman E. Calloway and his jazz band, but the man Bud was convinced was his father turns out to be old, cold, and cantankerous. Luckily, the band members are more welcoming; they take him in, put him to work, and begin to teach him to play an instrument. In a Victorian ending, Bud uses the rocks he has treasured from his childhood to prove his surprising relationship with Mr. Calloway. The lively humor contrasts with the grim details of the Depression-era setting and the particular difficulties faced by African Americans at that time. Bud is a plucky, engaging protagonist. Other characters are exaggerations: the good ones (the librarian and Pullman car porter who help him on his journey and the band members who embrace him) are totally open and supportive, while the villainous foster family finds particularly imaginative ways to torture their charge. However, readers will be so caught up in the adventure that they won't mind. Curtis has given a fresh, new look to a traditional orphan-finds-a-home story that would be a crackerjack read-aloud.-Kathleen Isaacs, Edmund Burke School, Washington, DC Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information. - Copyright 1999 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.

Bulletin for the Center... - 11/01/1999 Bud Caldwell, age ten, has been living in a Flint, Michigan orphanage since his mother died when he was six years old. Sent to an abusive foster home, Bud runs away, intending to seek the man he believes to be his father, Herman E. Calloway, leader of a noted African-American jazz band. On the road Bud gets a ride with Lefty Lewis, a good-natured, good-hearted man who drives him to Grand Rapids, the location of Calloway’s band, where Bud finally finds the place he belongs. The story of Bud’s search is set against the background of the Great Depression, and Curtis evokes an atmosphere of need and despair held together by strands of hope and generosity. Individual scenes have tremendous emotional impact: Bud, too late to get a place in line for breakfast at the mission, is temporarily adopted by a family already in line; a confrontation in a freight yard between residents of a Flint Hooverville and Pinkerton detectives gives a sense of the determination of men desperate to feed their families; Bud’s encounter with Lefty Lewis on a dark road in the middle of the night circumspectly indicates the dangers of being Negro in a racist community. While the circumstances surrounding Bud’s return to his family may gently chafe against credulity, Curtis’ characterizations are so strong they make coincidence acceptable. The resourceful Bud is a hero readers will take immediately to heart, and the people he encounters on his journey have a specificity that raises them above plot devices and makes them individually memorable. - Copyright 1999 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.

Booklist - 09/01/1999 Bud, 10, is on the run from the orphanage and from yet another mean foster family. His mother died when he was 6, and he wants to find his father. Set in Michigan during the Great Depression, this is an Oliver Twist kind of foundling story, but it’s told with affectionate comedy, like the first part of Curtis’ The Watsons Go to Birmingham (1995). On his journey, Bud finds danger and violence (most of it treated as farce), but more often, he finds kindness—in the food line, in the library, in the Hooverville squatter camp, on the road—until he discovers who he is and where he belongs. Told in the boy’s naive, desperate voice, with lots of examples of his survival tactics (“Rules and Things for Having a Funner Life and Making a Better Liar out of Yourself”), this will make a great read-aloud. Curtis says in an afterword that some of the characters are based on real people, including his own grandfathers, so it’s not surprising that the rich blend of tall tale, slapstick, sorrow, and sweetness has the wry, teasing warmth of family folklore. - Copyright 1999 Booklist.