Best Buddy

By Paul Gray

Chalk it up as yet another evil of stereotyping, but the term children's-book author does not summon to most minds the image of a 6-ft. 2-in., 240-lb. man with dreadlocks. Yet that description fits Christopher Paul Curtis, 46, and you can add "prizewinning" to the children's-book-author part. Last week Curtis' second book, Bud, Not Buddy (Delacorte; 245 pages; $15.95), garnered an impressive twofer: the John Newbery Medal, awarded annually by the American Library Association to the best American children's book; and the Coretta Scott King Author Award for excellence by an African American writing for children and young adults.

Set in 1936, Bud, Not Buddy is narrated by Bud Caldwell, 10, who goes "on the lam" from an unpleasant foster home in Flint, Mich., in search of his father. Like his resourceful young hero, Curtis grew up in Flint. After graduating from high school, he joined the assembly line at Fisher Body Plant No. 1 and began writing during his breaks. He didn't set out to be a children's author. But, he says, "I felt I had a story to tell, and for some reason the voice came to me as a 10-year-old." Many years and several jobs later in 1995, his first book, The Watsons Go to Birmingham--1963, was published.

The father of two children, 21 and 8, Curtis credits his wife Kaysandra, a registered nurse, for encouraging him to write full time. The financial sacrifice has paid off: "As soon as this award was announced, my wife went from house hunting to mansion hunting."

--By P.G. Reported by Andrea Sachs/New York

With reporting by Andrea Sachs/New York