Christopher Paul Curtis

Christopher Paul Curtis
Occupation	Writer
Genre	Children's literature
Notable works	Bud, Not Buddy,The Watsons Go to Birmingham: 1963, and Elijah of Buxton

Christopher Paul Curtis (born May 10, 1953) is an American children's author and a Newbery Medal winner who wrote the The Watsons Go to Birmingham: 1963 and the critically acclaimed Bud, Not Buddy. Bud, Not Buddy is the first novel to receive both the Coretta Scott King Award and the Newbery Medal. His newest book, entitled Elijah of Buxton (winner of the Scott O'Dell Historical Fiction Award, the Coretta Scott King Award, and a Newbery Honor) is set in a free Black community in Ontario that was founded in 1849 by runaway slaves.

Biography

Curtis was born in Flint, Michigan, the partial setting of many of his books. One such example is Bucking the Sarge, which is about a man named Luther T. Ferrel, who is dissatisfied with growing up in that city. He is an alumnus of the University of Michigan-Flint.

Curtis and his wife, Kaysandra, have two children. Christopher modeled characters in Bud, Not Buddy after his two grandfathers—Earl “Lefty” Lewis, a Negro league baseball pitcher, and 1930s bandleader Herman E. Curtis, Sr., of Herman Curtis and the Dusky Devastators of the Depression.

Education and Work

Curtis spent his first 13 years after high school on the assembly line of Flint’s historic Fisher Body Plant #1. His job entailed hanging car doors. Curtis took a year off of work to write his first novel, The Watsons Go To Birmingham--1963. He wrote the novel in longhand in the Windsor Public Library and later his son, Steven, typed the story on the computer for him.Afterwards he appeared on the hit show "Yo Momma,"

Published Works

The Watsons Go to Birmingham: 1963 - When Kenny's 13-year-old brother, Byron, gets to be too much trouble, the Watsons head from Chicago to Birmingham, Alabama to visit Grandma Sands, the one person who can shape Byron up. But the events that shake Birmingham in the September of 1963 will change Kenny's life forever.

Bud, Not Buddy - It's 1936, in Flint, Michigan. Times may be hard, and ten-year-old Bud may be a motherless boy on the run, but Bud's got a few things going for him.

Bucking the Sarge - Luther T. Farrell has got to get out of Flint, Michigan. He just needs to escape the evil empire of the local slumlord, his mother.

Mr. Chickee's Messy Mission - When Russell's dog, Rodney Rodent, jumps into a mural to chase a demonic-looking gnome and disappears, the Flint Future Detectives are on the case.

Mr. Chickee's Funny Money - Mr. Chickee, the genial blind man in the neighborhood, gives 9-year-old Steven a mysterious bill with 15 zeros on it and the image of a familiar but startling face.

Elijah of Buxton - Eleven-year-old Elijah is the first child born into freedom in Buxton, Canada West (now Ontario), a settlement of runaway slaves just over the border from Detroit. He’s best known in his hometown as the boy who made a memorable impression on Frederick Douglass. But things change when a former slave steals money from Elijah’s friend, who has been saving to buy his family out of captivity in the South. Elijah embarks on a dangerous journey to America in pursuit of the thief, and he discovers firsthand the unimaginable horrors of the life his parents fled–a life from which he’ll always be free, if he can find the courage to get back home.

In the near future Christopher Paul Curtis will be writing a spin off from Bud Not Buddy based on the character Deza Malone titled The Marvelous Ms. Malone. It will be the story of Bud Not Buddy through Dezas eyes.

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Awards/Honors

Curtis received the Newbery Medal and the Coretta Scott King Medal for his book, Bud, Not Buddy. A later book, Elijah of Buxton, was named a Newbery Honor book, Coretta Scott King Medal, and Scott O'Dell Historical Fiction Award in 2008.

Christopher Paul Curtis appeared on The Tavis Smiley Show on PBS to promote his book Bucking the Sarge. The show appeared on January 11, 2005.

He also appeared on The Today Show Book Club to answer questions about his book with Al Roker in 2007.

The Watsons Go To Birmingham--1963 was also given a Newbery Honor and Coretta Scott King Honor.

Curtis won the 2009 Anne V. Zarrow Award for Young Readers' Literature, which honors a "nationally acclaimed author who has made a significant contribution to the field of literature and young adults".

External References

• Official Christopher Paul Curtis Website
• Nobody But Curtis (NBC)
• Christopher Paul Curtis Interview on the Today Show