And there were more people sitting around than I first thought too […] They were all the colors you could think of, black, white and brown, but the fire made them look like they were different shades of orange. There were dark orange folks sitting next to medium orange folks sitting next to light orange folks.
Here, we see how the Depression became the great equalizer for many people in America. It didn’t matter your race, or religion, or creed; people were losing their jobs and their homes all over, and that forced people to come together to survive. In the light of the Hooverville fire, no one is better or worse or even different than anyone else.
Most folks think you start to be a real adult when you're fifteen or sixteen years old, but that's not true, it really starts when you're around six. It's at six that grown folks don't think you're a cute little kid anymore, they talk to you and expect that you understand everything they mean.
As much as anything else, this story is about Bud growing up, and specifically being forced to grow up fast during the Great Depression. Around six, the time when presumably a kid should ‘know better,’ grown-ups start assuming that they do, and if they don’t, well… they’d better learn quick. Bud isn’t quite a young adult, but he can’t really afford to be fully a kid either.
I can't all the way blame Todd for giving me trouble, though. If I had a regular home with a mother and father I wouldn't be too happy about other kids living in my house either.
Bud is treated horribly when he stays with the Amoses. Todd Amos beats him up and lies to get Bud locked in the shed for the evening where he is stung by hornets, but Bud somehow manages to see Todd’s side of the story. This is an incredible display of self-awareness for a kid, and an impressive display of empathy in general. This establishes Bud as someone who is far from your average kid, and someone the readers can root for.
I put my hand back on Mr. C's shoulder and patted him and rubbed him a couple of times, then left the room.
Bud's relationship with Herman was complicated from the moment they met and it didn't really improve over the subsequent weeks. In fact, it reached its nadir right before the truth was uncovered when Herman yelled at Bud that he was a thief and Bud screamed out his mother's name. This nadir, though, was the moment that the healing began. Curtis does an excellent job of keeping things realistic in that Bud and Herman do not tearfully embrace or cry out that they're so glad to have found each other. Instead, there is this quiet, intimate moment when Bud's capacity for empathy extends to his grieving grandfather; there are no histrionics and it's unlikely that their relationship will be perfect anytime soon, but it's a lovely moment that indicates forgiveness and understanding.
All the instruments blended together and, just like that smell in the library, you couldn't tell which one was your favorite.
One of the most memorable things about Bud, Not Buddy is the centrality of jazz music in the novel. Bud is a stand-in for the reader in this scene as he watches and listens to the incredible band. Curtis describes the instruments' sound and the mood they create beautifully, and weaves a spell for Bud and the reader. There is a sense of the magnificence of this truly American art form, and a truly African American art form. There is a sense of the life and vibrancy and hope this music offers; there is the celebration of the individual at the same time as there is the celebration of the group. Jazz, like radio and film, was one of the ways Americans made the Depression more palatable, and that certainly comes across here.
It's different when you lie to another kid. Most times kids really do want to know what they're asking you.
Most works of children's literature include a quote like this—a quote in which the child narrator articulates their belief that adults are out of touch and children are the ones who really get it (see The Little Prince, for one). Bud knows that adults sometimes ask questions that they don't want to know the answers to or that they simply won't understand the answers to. It is okay to lie to adults sometimes because it's what you've got to do to survive. However, lying to other kids is different because they want to know what is actually going on with you and they will be more open and trustworthy when you do tell them.
My heart started jumping around in my stomach. The only kind of people who would carry human blood around in a car were vampires!
There are several situations in which Bud jumps to dramatic conclusions like this, and they're all simultaneously understandable, charming, and scary. They are understandable because Bud is a child and has a vibrant imagination. He's been through a lot in his young life and it makes sense that he is wary of danger from many quarters. It is charming because thinking a man is a vampire is something only a creative child would do. However, Bud's jumping to conclusions like this is scary because the actions he takes as a result end up hurting him. When he thought the hornets' nest was a vampire bat he paid the price. Here, after deciding Lefty Lewis is a vampire, he hijacks his car. Bud could have crashed and hurt himself or crashed and destroyed the car, thus hurting Lewis. Bud comes to understand this lesson a little bit by the end of the novel, but still has room to grow.
"This is America, boys, you're sounding like a bunch of Commies, you know I can't let you on this train. I got kids to feed too, and I'd lose my job."
In this quote, as in the one from Lefty Lewis in which he says that laboring men just want a bit of dignity, readers can see a few different things going on. There is the sense that working-class people are still thought of as "radical" or "agitators" even in an era when economic devastation made little distinction between upper, middle, or lower class citizens. Authority figures like the cops or business owners preferred to see such men as Communists or anarchists or merely troublemakers rather than men trying to feed their families and feel like they are respected in their place of work. The other interesting thing is that the cop does indicate that he too has his job to do and his family to feed, so there is certainly a bit of compassion for him. The fact that these cops actually leave of their own free will is a testament to their character, but it wasn't a given that it would turn out that way.
Writ about their car in fancy letters it said, THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE AMERICA TODAY!
In this quote Curtis is actually referencing one of the most important Depression-era photographs in which a bread line of beleaguered African Americans is in front of a billboard depicting a white American family in a car with the text, "There's No Way Like the American Way." This is ironic on two levels. First, the Depression was terrible for everyone, and many white families were not immune from extreme deprivation and hardship. The billboard's message that (in Curtis' version) there is no place like America today is absurd because "today" is a time of economic devastation. Second, African Americans had an even worse time of the Depression than did whites, due to structural and internalized racism. The white family in the car looks happy and carefree and the black people below the billboard look exhausted and glum; this could be a visual metaphor for the entire dynamic between the races at this time.
Fair is fair. The Amoses deserved what they were going to get.
In this simple claim of Bud's, Curtis demonstrates just how realistic of a character Bud actually is. Bud may be heroic and smart and resourceful, but he's not a saint. He is a young man who does not like others to take advantage of him or to act in unprincipled ways. When he is wronged he feels it deeply, and has the desire to enact revenge in order to restore a karmic balance to the universe. He doesn't do anything too bad to the family; he merely embarrasses Todd using the thing Todd sneeringly accused Bud of doing (wetting the bed), and is then on his way. Certainly "an eye for an eye" isn't the best lesson to teach children, but Bud's thought process here is very believable and makes the reader cheer for him even more—after all, the Amoses are horrible!
