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Penguin Readers Level 4: Bud, Not Buddy (ELT Graded Reader)
Penguin Readers Level 4: Bud, Not Buddy (ELT Graded Reader)
Jan 17, 2026 11:27 PM

Author:Christopher Paul Curtis

Penguin Readers Level 4: Bud, Not Buddy (ELT Graded Reader)

Penguin Readers is an ELT graded reader series. Please note that the eBook edition does NOT include access to the audio edition and digital book. Written for learners of English as a foreign language, each title includes carefully adapted text, new illustrations and language learning exercises.

Titles include popular classics, exciting contemporary fiction, and thought-provoking non-fiction, introducing language learners to bestselling authors and compelling content.

The eight levels of Penguin Readers follow the Common European Framework of Reference for language learning (CEFR). Exercises at the back of each Reader help language learners to practise grammar, vocabulary, and key exam skills. Before, during and after-reading questions test readers' story comprehension and develop vocabulary.

Bud, Not Buddy,a Level 4 Reader, is A2+ in the CEFR framework. The text is made up of sentences with up to three clauses, introducing more complex uses of present perfect simple, passives, phrasal verbs and simple relative clauses. It is well supported by illustrations, which appear regularly.

Bud Caldwell is an 11-year old boy who goes to live in a horrible foster home. After Bud escapes, he decides to find his father. Bud's adventures take him across the United States of America during the Great Depression, a time when many people were very poor. Will Bud find a home and a family?

Visit the Penguin Readers website

Register to access online resources including tests, worksheets and answer keys. Exclusively with the print edition, readers can unlock a digital book and audio edition (not available with the eBook).

Reviews

A spectacular, thrilling novel...suspense crackles...celebrates triumphant against-the-odds camaraderie.

—— Sunday Times

O'Connor is on stellar form with this ensemble thriller ...while the story's inbuilt tension urges you on, it's the sheer vigour of O'Connor's beautifully turned phrases that really makes the book sing...an expert storyteller

—— Daily Mail

A literary thriller of the highest order. The incarnation of O'Flaherty, the Irish Oskar Schindler, is sublime. What often elevates a writer is compassion, and O'Connor has it in spades... Beautifully crafted, his razor-sharp dialogue is to be savoured, and he employs dark humour to great effect. The plot twists keep on coming

—— Observer

Breathtakingly good writing - O'Connor puts you right there, centre stage in the story and never lets you go

—— Peter James

The novel's evocative scene-setting, its propulsive narration and its powerful depiction of bravery and unity in extremis, all make for an engrossing read.

—— Telegraph

Thrilling... Based on true events, this tense, gripping narrative is rendered in beautifully evocative prose

—— Mail on Sunday

Impressive and pleasurable...the diverse ventriloquism of O'Connor's novel evokes a city in peril with wonderful vitality

—— Financial Times

A tale worth re-telling, adorned as it is by the brilliants of O'Connor's impressionistic writing

—— Best New Thrillers , The Times

A powerful portrait of extraordinary courage

—— Irish Independent

Precisely choreographed... We eagerly follow the characters through uncertainty and disappointment as well as high-stakes jeopardy. O'Connor is playing with the possibilities of multiple narrators, and thinking also about plurality, reliability and the historical record

—— Guardian, Book of the Day

Gripping...a hugely satisfying book, from its explosive opening to its bittersweet end

—— Washington Post

So beautifully written, a masterclass in 'voices' and an extremely tense thriller. It's magnificent.

—— Marian Keyes

A masterwork... so urgent, so incredibly alive... A searing and beautiful example of storytelling's infinite importance

—— Donal Ryan

For all its thrills...primarily-and triumphantly-an intimate drama that illuminates both the fragility and the wonder of unlikely human connections forged in adversity and, in some cases, enduring for a lifetime

—— Wall Street Journal

I cannot say enough good things about this World War II thriller... Told from different perspectives of people in the movement, as well as the Gestapo villain, readers will hold their breath if the Choir will fulfill their critical mission. It's the first of a trilogy and a must read

—— BookRiot

O'Connor's work is hugely impressive and utterly haunting

—— Sunday Mirror

Riveting, immersive, synesthetic, linguistically dazzling, funny and dark, this novel is blessed with a kind of magical grace. Sprezzatura springs from every page

—— Sarah Moore Fitzgerald, , SMF Bookclub

O'Connor's writing is always intensely atmospheric...O'Connor succeeds in integrating into the suspenseful plot numerous narrative voices that intersect class, gender, nationality and religion

—— Literary Review

Gripping, compelling and utterly brilliant. O'Connor's gift for exquisite language shines through

—— Liz Nugent

A thriller of engrossing urgency

—— Irish Independent

Joseph O'Connor is a very great artist and storyteller

—— Sebastian Barry

I was utterly engrossed from start to finish. The writing hums with energy. Such a gloriously vivid depiction of a Rome that is both familiar and altogether strange. And a powerful story of ordinary humans showing extraordinary bravery and tenacity. Bravo!

—— Danielle McLaughlin

Riveting...a storytelling tour de force. This is top-drawer WWII fiction

—— Publishers Weekly

My Father's House is a powerful literary thriller from a master of historical fiction. Joseph O'Connor has created an unforgettable novel of love, faith and sacrifice, and what it means to be human in the most extreme circumstances

—— Killarney Outlook

There are few living writers who can take us back in time so assuredly, with such sensual density, through such gorgeous sentences. Joseph O'Connor is a wonder

—— Peter Carey

A hugely entertaining book about the grand scope of friendship and love, it is also, movingly - at times, astonishingly - a story of transience, loss and true loyalty

—— Guardian, on Shadowplay

[A] true story... O'Connor's imagining of the characters' thoughts helps to bring them to life... This remains a tale worth retelling

—— The Times

A fine novelist, capable of remarkable feats of literary ventriloquism

—— Spectator

Compelling

—— Radio Times

O'Connor brings an impressive range of thrillerish techniques to his storytelling... [My Father's House is] vivid and atmospheric

—— Tablet

Joseph O'Connor's new novel, My Father's House, is two things: a twisty thriller whose outcome is hard to guess; and an exquisitely rendered piece of literature from a masterful writer... Bravo

—— Jewish Chronicle

Powerful...one of Ireland's greatest living storytellers...gifting us a transportive quality that only the very best historical fiction can hope to achieve

—— Totally Dublin

A thrilling new novel

—— Daily Express

Stylish, gripping, and inspiring...O'Connor is one of the most talented and respected writers of his generation

—— Church Times

O'Connor combines suspenseful storytelling with an eye for quirky human details

—— Sunday Times, *Summer Reads of 2023*

[A] lavishly crafted thriller

—— Daily Mail, *Summer Reads of 2023*

Magnificent

—— Jewish Chronicle

Victory City can, in many ways, be read as an entertaining jaunt through Indian history, though it is history through the kaleidoscopic and sweeping lens of a fairy tale... this brilliantly magical tale.

—— Irish Independent

This sweeping, intricately crafted fairy tale is underscored by very human characters and Rushdie's signature wit.

—— Culture Whisper, *Books to Look Out For 2023*

A grand entertainment, in a tale with many strands, by an ascended master of modern legends.

—— Kirkus Review

Rushdie's magical style unfurls wonders.

—— Washington Post

Rushdie's Victory City is another fabulous novel set in his native India... He's a master who never forgets that the main goal of a storyteller is to entertain rather than educate or pontificate.

—— New York Journal of Books

Rushdie is, above all else...one of the most powerful defenders of story we have... Victory City is a victory for Rushdie - and for every reader who enters its gates.

—— Harper's Bazaar

Rushdie succeeds in creating a kind of incantatory prose that befits the fabulist nature of the story... he can enchant readers like few other writers.

—— Literary Review

This is a man at his full-strength, high-tar best - with his deeply humane worldview, his brilliance at set-pieces and, above all, the thrilling wildness of his imagination on irresistible display.

—— Reader's Digest

With its carousel of shifting politics and history, Victory City is Rushdie's most textured and triumphant wonder tale yet.

—— Hindu

Utterly enchanting.

—— Eastern Eye

Rushdie's return to magic, myth, and India's ancient stories is dazzling. With mercurial prose and vivid renderings, Rushdie never loses us in Victory City's convolutions, but instead builds our trust to travail the many grand events of Pampa's imagined empire.

—— Esquire

A rich, dramatic saga... The many moments of comedy...show Salman Rushdie's storytelling skills and his endearing sense of playfulness... the main feeling the reader gets is of a storyteller enjoying himself.

—— Tablet, *Novel of the Week*

Rushdie is an expert at mixology; he's the DJ Shadow of text with references and allusions to high and low culture from Finnegans Wake to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon... a well-told tale that gets bums on seats.

—— National

There's a magical thread of storytelling running through the veins of each character we meet in this book... a joy to read.

—— UK Press Syndication

A work of great imagination... In Victory City the power of the written word and of the storyteller remain triumphant.

—— NB

Rushdie’s sheer love of fiction is irrepressible.

—— Daily Telegraph, *Books of the Year*

A wonderfully entertaining literary hybrid

—— The Times, *Books of the Year*

Victory City is Salman Rushdie at his imaginative best… sweeping the reader on a journey that feels epic in a mere 320 pages

—— i, *Books of the Year*

From start to finish, the reader or listener can only be impressed by the literary flair of Rushdie's compelling storytelling... Victory City is a joy to listen to.

—— Entertainment Focus
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