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Chapter 1
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Bud, Not Buddy, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Economic Insecurity and Community
Children vs. Adults
Resourcefulness
Family and Home
Race and Racism
Summary
Analysis
Todd Amos is “hitting [Bud] so hard and fast,” that there is blood squirting from Bud’s nose. Bud tries to get away by crawling under the bed while Todd starts kicking him with his slippers.
Eventually Mrs. Amos comes in while Todd is kicking Bud, though she does not interrupt him. Instead she watches him for a while as he kicks Bud—now with a different leg—though it’s a little difficult for her to see exactly what’s happening. When she finally interrupts by calling out “Toddy?” softly, Todd falls on his knees and starts gasping. He tells his concerned mother, through gasps, that he was only “trying to help,” before pointing to a welt on his cheek. Mrs. Amos snatches Bud from under the bed and blames him for hitting her son and provoking his asthma.
Although Mrs. Amos can’t really tell what’s going on—whether Bud is hurting Todd or Todd is attacking Budd—she certainly doesn’t hurry to put an end to the violence. When she finally does intervene, she does it almost reluctantly, as if she is worried about disturbing her son. When Todd lies about Bud abusing him first, Mrs. Amos seems only too happy to believe him and add to Bud’s torture by turning her anger on him.
Themes
Todd lies and says that he was just trying to get “Buddy” to go to the “lavatory,” because he’s got “‘bed wetter’ written all over him.” This prompts Bud to feel impressed by Todd’s lying skills. He begrudgingly praises Todd for following “rule 3” of his “Rules and Things for Having a Funner Life and Making a Better Liar of Yourself.” Bud’s rule is that lies should be as simple as possible, although he concedes that Mrs. Amos would believe anything Todd said anyway.
Todd continues to lie about Bud’s involvement in their fight making it seem as if Todd was only trying to defend himself. Bud is more impressed than he is angry about Todd’s lies, but he has enough insight to know that Mrs. Amos would never give him the benefit of doubt anyway, since unlike her son, he is disposable to her.
Themes
Bud reveals that the real reason they fought was because Todd had terrorized him with a pencil as he slept. Though the final thing that tipped him off was Todd’s insistence on calling him Buddy instead of Bud, despite the fact that he had “already told him twice that [his] name was Bud.”
Todd is a violent child who takes an almost immediate disregard for Bud’s personal space, dignity, and sense of self. It is particularly Todd’s disregard for Bud’s sense of self, when he calls him Buddy instead of Bud, that tips Bud over the edge and provokes him to defend himself.
Themes
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Provoked, Bud hits him and Todd falls on the floor. When Todd eventually got up, he smiled and took off his robe “like he was getting ready to do some hard work.” Though Bud put up a good fight, he realized too late that Todd could “hit like a mule.”
Todd’s behavior is not playful—he seems to want to genuinely hurt Bud—nor is he welcoming to Bud on his first day in a new home. Like many of the places where Bud has been forced to live, the Amoses’ household is far from being a real home for Bud.
Themes
Mrs. Amos consoles Todd, and she calls Bud a “beastly little brute.” She says that she refuses to tolerate Bud in her house for longer and locks him in the room after she and Todd leave. Mrs. Amos leaves and returns with Mr. Amos, as well as Bud’s suitcase. Bud guesses they have looked inside the suitcase and feels betrayed because they had promised not to.
Mrs. Amos treats Todd tenderly, coddling him like a young child. In contrast, she sees Bud in a dehumanizing light, considering him a “beast[]” and a “brute” rather than a human being. Her cruelty is even more pronounced when she locks Bud in the room and invades Bud’s privacy by looking in his suitcase. However, as Mrs. Amos does not view Bud as a true human being with thoughts and feelings, she can quickly and heartlessly disregard his needs.
Themes
Mrs. Amos berates Bud for being ungrateful and a foolish member “of our race.” She says she will get in touch with the Home in the morning and will be returning Bud to them. In the meantime, she lets Bud know that Mr. Amos will take him to the shed tonight where he will sleep.
Mrs. Amos calls Bud a foolish member “of our race” to make him feel as if in letting her down, he has let every member of their race down—and, consequently, that he is profoundly unloved and doesn’t belong anywhere or with anyone.
Themes
Bud hardly listens to Mrs. Amos; he is still upset that they looked in his suitcase, so he starts to plot how to get even. Mrs. Amos refuses to give the suitcase back to Bud when he reaches for it, claiming that it is her insurance that Bud won’t steal anything by morning time, since he would never leave without the suitcase. Mrs. Amos then makes Bud apologize to Todd before going to the shed. Bud complies to avoid a beating with the strap she carries.
Bud is not one to have prolonged feelings of sadness. He is a planner, so he gets to work on how to make the Amoses pay, while trying to retrieve his suitcase. Of course, his plan to retrieve the suitcase fails momentarily, so to bide his time he plays along with the Amoses and agrees to apologize to them to avoid more unnecessary pain.
Themes
Mr. Amos takes Bud’s suitcase away while Mrs. Amos leads Bud to Todd’s room. Bud apologizes to Todd, then to Mr. Amos, and then finally to Mrs. Amos. He has to lie especially well when apologizing to Mrs. Amos because she does not trust him enough to believe what he says. So, Bud lies and begs her not to take him back to the Home, though this is exactly what he wants. Bud reveals that his behavior comes from “rule 118”: “you have to give adults something that they think they can hurt you with by taking it away.”
Bud is insincere in his apology, but he puts on a good show to make Mrs. Amos less suspicious of him. He follows up the apology performance by begging Mrs. Amos to not send him back to the Home—knowing she will do just that if she thinks it’ll make him unhappy—showing himself to be a skillful manipulator of adults. Regardless of the sense of isolation and loneliness the Home brings, to Bud, it is still better than being with the Amoses.
Themes
After the apology, Todd becomes animated and claims that there are vampire bats, spiders, and centipedes in the shed. Todd also claims one of the children who spent the night in the shed has never been found and all that is left of him is a “big puddle of his blood on the floor.” Mrs. Amos gently cautions Todd to not tire himself.
Todd appears to want something bad to happen to Bud, which is why he goes into detail about the blood of the boy who was never found. This detail also reveals that Bud is not the first to suffer such abuse at the Amoses’ hands, which casts major doubt on the foster care system’s ability to truly nurture and protect the children in its care. Again, Todd, like others in his family has no tenderness or compassion for Bud.
Themes
On the way to the shed, Bud passes a shotgun and wonders what the Amoses need it for. He also spies his suitcase under the kitchen table—which makes him feel calmer—but he pretends he doesn’t see it.
Always the planner, Bud is very aware of his surroundings and of the location of his suitcase, as if he knows a time will come when he will need to know the layout of the Amoses’ house.
Themes
Right outside the shed, Bud refuses to beg for mercy from Mr. Amos. From his vantage point he notices wood, spider webs, and “old yellow newspapers over the glass so the kids who got locked in here couldn’t peek out.” Mr. Amos gives him his sleeping supplies and nudges him further in, prompting Bud to take “two more baby steps in.”
Though Bud worries about his night in the shed, he refuses to cower in front of an adult—while Bud’s dramatic apology moments earlier served a key purpose (manipulating Mrs. Amos into sending him back to the Home), groveling at Mr. Amos’s feet won’t do any good. Bud continues to look at his surroundings, memorizing things about the shed that may be of use to him later. Nevertheless, despite his grown-up act, Bud is also a child and finds the idea of sleeping in a shed very frightening.
Themes
Bud becomes very agitated and realizes that if he were a normal kid, he would cry. He sees a dark stain on the floor and believes it to be blood “from the kid who had disappeared” that Todd told him about. By the time Mr. Amos closes the door, Bud has memorized the shape of the stain. Shortly after, Bud hears the sound of Mr. Amos locking the door with the “loudest click” Bud has ever heard.
Bud doesn’t cry because he’s not a “normal kid,” but his realization of this suggests that he wishes he were “normal” and could cry freely. Nevertheless, Bud continues to remain vigilant and alert, despite seeing traces of blood and hearing the lock of the door.
Themes
