Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy
Author:
Gary D. Schmidt
Publication:
2005 by Clarion Books
Genre:
Fiction, Historical Fiction
Pages:
217
Current state:
This book has been evaluated and information added. It has been read and any content considerations have been added.
Book Guide
Turner Buckminster can't find anything good to say about his first six hours in Phippsburg, Maine, where even baseball is a different game. He's about ready to light out for the Territories, where every shirt he wears won't have to be starched white and no one will know him as the new minister's son. But after meeting Lizzie Bright Griffin, a smart and sassy girl who lives on nearby Malaga Island, a poor community founded by former slaves, he doesn't feel quite so miserable. Lizzie shows Turner how to hit a Maine baseball, dig for clams along the shore, and row a boat next to a whale—opening up a whole new world to him, one filled with the mystery and wonder of Maine's rocky coast.
But the two soon discover that the town elders, along with Turner's father, want to force the people of Lizzie's island to leave so that a lucrative tourist trade can be started there. Although Turner is forbidden to step foot on the island, he and Lizzie try to save its people—and get caught up in a spiral of disasters that alter their lives forever.
Gary D. Schmidt has crafted a unique coming-of-age novel based on the true event of an island's destruction in 1912.
From the dust jacket
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Gary D. Schmidt
1957 -American
Gary D. Schmidt is a professor of English at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He has written books about authors Katherine Paterson and Rob... See more
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Content Guide
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Resource Guide
Podcast
Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy
Released in 2023 by Plumfield Moms Podcast
Available formats: Streaming Audio
Length: 1 hr. 8 min.
View on the Plumfield Moms Podcast site
Reviews
Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy
Reviewed by Sara Masarik
It is hard to review this book in a way that doesn’t spoil the ending but still gives you a sense of why this is so compelling. Because this is a work of historical fiction, I am tempted to tell you about the facts that inspired this tragic tale. I think, however, that I will let you decide for yourself what you wish to know before reading. The setting of this story is real. The characters are semi-real. The large events are mostly real and the small ones are added to draw us in and make us care. In some ways this is one of Schmidt’s gentler tales, but in other ways it is the hardest. I am glad to have read this. I will recommend this to teens and moms. I will probably do a book club on this one. And I will sob each time I do.
Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy
Reviewed by Betsy Farquhar
Turner comes to understand himself, his father, his peers, his town, and his world in this bittersweet coming-of-age story set in 1912 Maine....
Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy
Reviewed by Matt Berman
Parents need to know that this tragic novel is based on actual events and offers much for discussion, which might spur readers on to further research. In addition to its depiction of racism in early 20th-century New England, there are relationships of many kinds to explore, moral growth and change in several characters...
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