Influences and Connections Paper

Introduction

The importance of stories in making the childhood as beautiful as it is cannot be undermined. It is these stories that not only polish our cognitive abilities but also instill in children important values for the rest of their lives. The children are able to relate to the different characters in the books they read and through this they discover their own hidden talents and give meaning to the world around them. The paper presents a comparison of two of the most favorite novels from the children's literature Sold and Bud, Not Buddy. The paper not only attempts to draw a comparison and contrast of the two novels but also describes how one of the works may have influenced the other. This probability of influence of one work on another is rooted in the fact that the work of one author may be the response of another author as authors are always reading one another's work for bringing necessary improvement to their own work.

Discussion

Bud, Not Buddy, penned by Christopher Paul Curtis, is a story of an orphan boy Bud Caldwell at the time of Great Depression. The life of the boy is a sad account of his search for identity. Back in those days, it was this identity that decided the difference between life and death. Life for the poor boy was marked by agony and distress. The most precious assets of his life were the stones and a few pictures that were left by his mother. He thinks of himself as

"A bud is a flower-to-be. A flower-in-waiting. Waiting for just the right warmth and care to open up. It's a little fist of love waiting to unfold and be seen by the world. And that's you." (Curtis, p. 42)

He has no other memory of his mother and does not have any identification of his father. The orphanage where he lives forces the children to depicts a fake picture of themselves and the orphanage.

“The Home forces the children to reflect an attitude that is seldom true.” (Curtis, p. 2)

The life of the boy takes a twist when he is taken in by a foster family called Amoses. When Bud engages in a fight with the twelve year old boy of the family, he is asked to spend the night out on the shed where he is stung by hornets. In those moments of distress, he decides that it high time he should seek his identity. Something inside him tells him that the man in the pictures left by his mother, Herman E. Calloway, must be his father.

On his way away from the wicked Amoses family, he meets a gentle man who offers to drive Bud to his father upon hearing the grievous story of his life as an orphan. The next morning when Bud reaches the restaurant where Herman's band performs, he is only greeted by contempt as Herman not only refuses to his father but also accuses him of stealing the stoned from ...