Bud, Not Buddy (Unabridged Audio Book)

Despite all the hardships in his short life (it’s the Depression, his mother died when he was six, he doesn’t know his father, and he’s been locked in a shed with a vampire by his mean foster family), 10-year-old orphan Bud (not Buddy) still has a great outlook on life and kindness in his heart. After all, he follows “Bud Caldwell’s Rules and Things for Having a Funner Life and Making a Better Liar Out of Yourself.” And he meets kind, helpful, and generous people, who, like the listener, are drawn to Bud’s big-hearted, optimistic nature. Shucks, he even “busts slob” with a dimpled girl he meets at a Hooverville (i.e. he kisses a girl). Film and television actor James Avery (he played the father on Fresh Prince of Bel Air) reads this Newbery Medal winner, deftly capturing the bittersweet humor and deep emotion in Curtis’ picaresque tale.