Rules and Things to Have a Funner Life: Stories
(Originally published March 18, 2005)
My son and I are in the midst of reading Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis. I had the good fortune to meet Mr. Curtis at a writer's conference in Indianapolis in 2001. I had JUST, as in days before, talked about revisions on a manuscript I'd submitted to Holt with the woman who would ultimately be my editor for Jericho Walls. So I was at the same time flying high with possibilities yet paralyzed with fear because I had NO IDEA what I was doing or how to pull off these rewrites. Mr. Curtis was a voice of encouragement and calm. In my copy of Bud, Not Buddy he inscribed, "Dear Kristi, Congratulations and Keep Writing!"
So Bud, Not Buddy is near and dear to my heart. I read it to my daughter when she was young - eight or nine, probably. For her, it was a fun book with glimpses of the realities of the Great Depression and segregation. But, trigger warning, it has some TOUGH themes for kids from hard places. Bud is an orphan. The book opens with Bud in an abusive foster home. He escapes and decides to look for his father, making the trek from Flint to Grand Rapids, Michigan during the racial and economic unrest of the 1930's. So don't read this book unless you're ready to have some deep conversations about death, first parents, abandonment, racism and classism. But if you are, I've co-opted a few of Bud's Rules and Things to Have a Funner Life.
Rules and Things to Have a Funner Life #1:
Use stories as a springboard to deep conversations. You may not think your child has questions or is internalizing opinions from the wider culture about race, religion, class, death, but he does and he is. Studies show that children begin to form concepts about and to classify others around age three. Stories provide a context to discuss those concepts and classifications. Talking about Bud's quest to find family, his relationships with those he meets on the way, complicated interactions with law enforcement, and the interracial dynamics of the band allows us to more fully explore those complex topics in our own real life.
Rules and Things to Have a Funner Life #2:
Use stories to expand your own reality. We tend to cluster in homogenized groups, so those around us reinforce our own preconceived ideas or beliefs. Stories open a door to think critically about those beliefs, to consider the rationale behind other ideas. Bud, Not Buddy brings to light different ideas about unionizing, about responding to racial injustice, about interacting with police, about poverty, about family.
Rules and Things to Have a Funner Life #3:
Use stories to build empathy. On needs only to read a few twitter feeds to realize that we live in a divisive world where those expressing different viewpoints or marginalized realities are at best misunderstood and at worst publicly derided. We struggle to hold space for those who think, live, believe differently. Studies show that literary fiction improves the reader's ability to understand and care about others' experiences, to walk in someone else's shoes.
Rules and Things to Have a Funner Life #4:
Use stories to build empathy. Bud faces trials and traumas in his short life, so much that he says "my eyes don't cry no more." But he keeps moving forward. He holds tight to the stories his momma used to tell him, and the love with which she told them. He escapes those who seek to do him harm, and he connects with those who try to help him. In this life we will have trouble, but take heart...
Rules and Things to Have a Funner Life #5:
Use stories to help your very active child fall asleep at bedtime when Daylight Savings Time means that it's still light outside. Enough said.
