Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy
by Gary D. Schmidt

    LIZZIE BRIGHT AND THE BUCKMINSTER BOY by Gary D. Schmidt
    Category:  Historical
    Age Recommendation:  Grades 6+
    Release Date:  4/25/06
    Publisher:  Yearling
    Reviewed by:  Mechele R. Dillard
    Rating:  4 Stars


    Thirteen-year-old Turner Buckminster III is not happy. He has moved with his parents from Boston to Phippsburg,
    Maine, and everything that can be wrong is: The local kids play slow-pitch baseball, his stiff white shirts label him "the
    minister's kid," and his mother isn't kidding when she hands him the Sears, Roebuck catalog and points to the little
    building out behind the parsonage. And when Turner begins to question the choices that residents of the town--and his
    father--are making regarding the future of the inhabitants of nearby Malaga Island, Turner begins to fear that what he
    heard before leaving Boston may have been the truth: "Folks in Maine spoke a whole different language and
    didn't care for those who couldn't speak it themselves" (p. 2).

    Schmidt sets this story in 1912, basing it on events which occurred in the Phippsburg/Malaga Island area on the coast
    of Maine. It starts a little slow, but readers who hang in through the first three chapters will find that he doesn't shy
    away from emotionally-charged issues such as racism, greed, and social posturing. However, Schmidt's focus is
    ultimately on the wisdom gained not only by young Turner, but by a surprising number of characters most readers will
    write off as "hopeless" early in the novel.

    John Newbery Medal Honor Book, 2005

    Michael L. Printz Honor Book, 2005

    The Lupine Award Honor Book, 2004