Author
Gary Schmidt’s novel Lizzie Bright and
the Buckminster Boy is based on a true episode in Maine history. Schmidt’s
searingly poignant story is woven around strong, memorable characters. Arriving
in Phippsburg, thirteen-year-old Turner Buckminster feels alienated as the son
of the town’s new minister. He was a baseball star back home but doesn’t
understand the strange way the game is played up here, and he has no friends.
Fortunately, he soon meets Lizzie Bright Griffin, a lively, clever girl who
introduces Turner to the tide pools and byways of her coastal home. Lizzie is
the first African American Tucker has met, and he learns that Lizzie’s home
community on the island just off the coast was established by former slaves.
Turner’s world is just opening up when he and Lizzie learn that the town
elders, with the support of Reverend Turner, plan to remove the island
population to make room for a moneymaking tourist venue. Both Turner and Lizzie
are swept up in difficult, ultimately disastrous events; Turner grows strong in
his sure-footed opposition to the town’s actions but is unable to stop them.
The town destroys the homes and gravesites on Malaga Island (an event that
actually took place in 1912, a little-known act of racism in New England
history), and Turner’s efforts are too late to save his friend Lizzie. This is
a powerful story of friendship, of discovering one’s moral compass and of the
destructive intransigence of prejudice. Ages 10 up.
