Bud, Not Buddy
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50 free Bud, Not Buddy trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Bud, Not Buddy follows a ten-year-old orphan who walks out of a cruel foster home in Depression-era Flint, Michigan, carrying a battered suitcase and a hunch about who his father might be. The novel is funny, fast and quietly serious about hunger, racism and what a family is, which is why it has been a classroom favourite since it was published in 1999. This quiz covers the whole story. Expect questions on Bud's rules for getting by, the things he keeps in his suitcase, the strangers who feed and shelter him, the musicians he tracks down, and the surprise waiting at the end. A handful look at the real history behind the book and at the writer who drew on his own family to tell it. It suits students checking their comprehension after a first read, parents and educators who want a ready-made multiple choice review, and anyone revisiting a childhood favourite. The opening questions are the most approachable, later ones reward close readers, and every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which children's book prize did Bud, Not Buddy win, a first for an African American man?
Newbery Medal
The Newbery Medal came more than twenty years after an African American author first received it. Bud's story also collected fourteen different state awards.
Q 02Herman E. Calloway, the bandleader Bud is sure is his father, turns out to be which relative?
His grandfather
His grandfather is the truth that comes out when Bud shouts his mother's name. Bud is privately relieved that the grumpy old man with the big belly is not his father after all.
Q 03What does Bud Caldwell smash with a rake in a dark shed, believing it is a bat about to attack?
A hornets' nest
A hornets' nest splits open and the swarm stings Bud until he breaks out through the shed window. Furious, he decides to get even with his foster family before he runs away.
Q 04Bud's Momma called a bud 'a little fist of' what, 'waiting to unfold and be seen by the world'?
Love
Love is the word Momma chose: a bud, she said, is a flower-to-be, 'a little fist of love waiting to unfold'. Buddy, she added, was a name for a dog.
Q 05The shantytown outside Flint where Bud is fed supper is of a kind named to mock which president?
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Hoover was president when the Depression began and was widely blamed for it, so homeless camps everywhere became Hoovervilles. Bud and Bugs first mishear the name as 'Hooperville'.
Q 06A box marked 'URGENT: CONTAINS HUMAN BLOOD' convinces Bud that the driver offering a lift is what?
A vampire
A vampire is Bud's first guess, so he locks himself in and tries to drive the car away. The blood was really being rushed to a hospital in Flint.
Q 07What does Herman E. Calloway pick up in every town his band plays, a habit begun for his daughter?
A rock
A rock from each stop, marked with the place and date, was his gift to a little girl who once asked for one. He still keeps a pile of them in the glovebox of his car.
Q 08Which saying did Bud's Momma teach him, one he recalls whenever his luck suddenly changes?
One door closes, another opens
One door closes, another opens was Momma's promise for the darkest nights. Bud decides that losing the librarian he trusted, who has moved away, is one of those doors shutting.
Q 09Which stage name do Herman E. Calloway's musicians give Bud in a mock knighting ceremony?
Sleepy LaBone
Sleepy LaBone joins his habit of sleeping past noon to the skinny frame that made one bandmate suggest 'the Bone'. Bud calls it the best name he has ever heard.
Q 10Bud's best friend at the Home, Bugs, earned his nickname after what crawled into his ear?
A cockroach
A cockroach got stuck so deep that four adults held Bugs down and tried to pull it out with tweezers. Bud says he never heard a kid scream that loud.
Q 11Which Flint-born writer, who spent years on a car assembly line, is the author of Bud, Not Buddy?
Christopher Paul Curtis
Christopher Paul Curtis read and wrote during his half-hour breaks in a Flint factory, where he worked for thirteen years. Bud's story was only his second novel.
Q 12Bud sets out to walk 120 miles from Flint to which Michigan city, home of Herman E. Calloway's band?
Grand Rapids
Grand Rapids would take 24 hours of walking by Bud's own sums, so he decides to travel mostly at night. He gets only three small towns along before a passing car stops for him.
Q 13Which 12-year-old bully, his foster parents' son, wakes Bud by jamming a pencil up his nose?
Todd Amos
Q 21The stew ladled out to Bud and Bugs at the shantytown outside Flint is named after which animal?
Muskrat
Muskrat gives the stew its name, though Bud also finds dandelion greens, potatoes, wild carrots and crawdads in it. Both boys go back for seconds.
Q 22Which chore is Bud sharing with a girl named Deza at the creek when she leans in to kiss him?
Washing dishes
Washing dishes at the creek is the price of supper in the camp. Deza went on to be the heroine of her own novel, The Mighty Miss Malone.
Q 23Which sad folk song is a harmonica player performing as Bud Caldwell receives his first kiss?
Shenandoah
Shenandoah drifts over from the camp's mouth organ, and Deza recites the words for Bud and calls the moment romantic. Bud just hears a sad song he does not much like.
Todd Amos then puts on a wounded act and blames the fight on Bud, and his mother believes every word. Bud is almost impressed by the performance.
Q 14Before fleeing his foster home, Bud pours what on the sleeping bully to make him wet the bed?
Warm water
Warm water works once he dribbles it on the boy's pyjama trousers, after dipping the sleeper's fingers in the glass does nothing. The family's mother hated bed-wetters above all else.
Q 15Which weapon does Bud hide on the back porch of his foster home so nobody can use it on him?
A shotgun
A shotgun leaning by the icebox is the first thing Bud deals with, fearing the family would fire it and call it an accident. He aims it at the stove and pretends to hunt a tiger before putting it outside.
Q 16Where does Bud sleep on his first night on the run, after finding the Flint library closed?
Under a Christmas tree
Under a Christmas tree is where he hides, one of a row of giant evergreens planted beside the library with branches low enough to conceal him. He rolls up in his blanket there.
Q 17At the mission breakfast line, a stranger saves Bud a place by pretending he is a son called what?
Clarence
Clarence is the name the man in overalls shouts, and his wife and two children play along so that Bud can eat. Bud thinks of them as his pretend family.
Q 18What treat does Bud's pretend mother sprinkle on his oatmeal at the Flint mission?
Brown sugar
Brown sugar came out of a packet she had brought for her own children, yet she shared it with a stranger's boy. When one of her kids sticks his tongue out at Bud, he does not blame him.
Q 19Miss Hill, the Flint librarian Bud hopes will help him, has married and moved to which city?
Chicago
Chicago is 54 hours away on foot, as another librarian works out with Bud from an atlas. He leaves disappointed, no longer sure who he can turn to.
Q 20A Flint librarian remembers that Bud always asked for books about which conflict, and saves him one?
The Civil War
The Civil War appeals to Bud less as history than for what he calls the best gory pictures in the world. He loses a whole afternoon in the book she finds him.
Q 24Bugs invites Bud to ride the rails out West, hoping to earn money doing which kind of work?
Picking fruit
Picking fruit was the plan the two boys sealed by spitting in their palms and shaking on being brothers. Only Bugs makes it onto the moving freight train.
Q 25Which driver spots Bud walking near Owosso at 2:30 in the morning and takes him the rest of the way?
Lefty Lewis
Lefty Lewis is modelled on a real Negro league pitcher from the author's own family. In the story he teases Bud about his peanut head and feeds him at his daughter's house.
Q 26Hiding in roadside bushes, Bud gives himself away by shouting that he dislikes what on a sandwich?
Mustard
Mustard was no obstacle, the driver replied, since it was not glued on and could be scraped off. Bud eats the baloney sandwich as it is and calls it the best of his life.
Q 27The man driving Bud across Michigan secretly carries flyers for a union of which railroad workers?
Pullman porters
Pullman porters in his home city could find no local printer willing to produce the meeting notices, so he fetched them from Flint. He has Bud hide the box under the seat when a policeman pulls them over.
Q 28Which kind of strike does Bud's driver across Michigan call the trouble in Flint's factories?
Sit-down
Sit-down strikers stay at their posts so the bosses cannot bring in others to take their jobs, Bud learns. The driver adds that factory owners seem scared of workers with any dignity or pride.
Q 29What is the name of Herman E. Calloway's club, where Bud first finds the band sitting in a circle?
The Log Cabin
The Log Cabin looks the part, with walls and entrance like giant chopped-down trees. Bud steps inside, waits in the dark between two sets of doors and comes back out pretending he has already spoken to his father.
Q 30At which restaurant does Bud eat the best meal of his life and finally burst into tears?
The Sweet Pea
The Sweet Pea is really someone's living room filled with card tables, yet Bud thinks it the best restaurant in the world. He cries because he feels he has finally found where he belongs.