Digressive, Young, Simple, Expressive, Believable (Slang and Common Tongue)
Digressive
Actually, it isn't so unusual that Bud digresses when he tells his story. He is ten, after all, and children often have their own way of telling things. What do we mean by a digression? Take a look at this classic example of a roundabout train of thought:
Even though it was me who was in a lot of trouble I couldn't help but feel sorry for Jerry. Not only because he was going to have to live around three girls, but also because being six is a real rough age to be at. Most folks think you start to be a real adult when you're fifteen or sixteen years old, but that's not true, it really starts when you're around six.
It's at six that grown folks don't think you're a cute little kid anymore, they talk to you and expect that you understand everything then mean. […] Six is a bad time too 'cause that's when some real scary things start to happen to your body, it's around then that your teeth start coming a-loose in your mouth. (1.24-26)
See, Bud begins by talking about one topic: who has it worse off in the new foster homes they are going to. But then Bud's thoughts go off in a different direction—all of a sudden, he starts thinking about what it was like being six years old and what happened to him when he was six. This thought lasts for pages, so a lot about Bud and his past just from following Bud's thoughts. That's the great thing about digressive narratives—you may not be walking right on through from point A to point B in the plot, but you get to know the characters and their situations really well.
Young
In Bud, Not Buddy, we really feel like we're in the head of a ten year old, even though the author is a full-blown grown-up. How did Curtis do that? Well, he probably paid close attention to how kids talk. Let's look at an example from Bud:
"Every once in a while a couple of cats would give out the kind of howls and yowls that would make the hair on your neck jump up if you were a human bean and your heart turn into a little cup of shaky yellow custard if you were a mouse." (10.6)
Bud adds in the word "yowls" after howls, even though howls would have done just fine. Maybe because Bud is young, he likes throwing in words that sound good or funny or rhyme just for fun. Kids also often only remember certain parts of common phrases, so it's not such a surprise when Bud says "jump up" instead of "stand up" when he's talking about the hairs on the back of his neck. And it's totally cute when Bud says "human bean" instead of "human being." We've definitely heard little kids make mistakes like that.
Simple
Curtis uses a lot of short, simple sentences when Bud talks or thinks or describes action. This is the kind of language a ten-year-old kid from Flint, Michigan, might actually use every day. There aren't any hard words thrown in, because Bud doesn't know hard words yet.
Believable (Slang and Common Tongue)
Bud's language is far from formal or correct, but it makes his character lively and believable. Why? Because it's easy to understand, and it's fun to imagine Bud actually saying these things. Some of the phrases Bud uses all the time are "shucks" and "doggone" and "woop, zoop, sloop." They're fun to read, and they totally sound like things a real kid might say.
Think that's great? Try this example on for size: "Bugs spit a big glob of slob in his hand and said, 'I knew I could depend on you, Bud.' […] We slapped our hands together as hard as we could and got our slobs mixed up real good, then waved them in the air so they'd dry" (8.28). This is a funny way to say that the boys spit in their hands and shook them as a way to seal the deal, but Bud's way of talking about it is funny, slangy, and kind of gross. We love it.
Expressive
Bud, Not Buddy has a lot of similes and metaphors that make it expressive and fun—and maybe sometimes challenging—to read. Let's look at some of them and see what they mean.
Todd looked up, fell on his knees and put his hands on his throat. He started huffing and puffing with his eyes bucking out of his head and his chest going up and down so hard that it looked like some kind of big animal was inside of him trying to bust out. (2.6)
Bud describes Todd as if Todd were a big animal—that's a simile—and describing Todd that way makes us see how scary and violent he is better than if Bud just said Todd was scary and violent. Because Todd looks like a big animal is trying to bust through his chest, we can see just how dramatic and wild he is acting for his mother. It makes him seem way more obnoxious.
I was thinking. Deza's momma was right, someone who doesn't know who their family is, is like dust blowing around in a storm, they don't belong to any one place. (8.199)
Deza's mother isn't just talking about real dust blowing around in a storm. She's saying that people without a family are like dust in a storm—another simile. She's talking about feeling lost and lonely and like you have no roots, and she's also giving us the image of the Dust Bowl, which was a major and tragic image in this era, so the simile goes both ways. It tells how Bud is feeling, but it also says that a lot of people at the time were feeling like that, too.