My father is with God, just as the minister here says. But God didn’t call him there because God had work for him to do. My father died because he was doing God’s work here.
He wanted the people of Malaga Island to live in a place that was their own.”
I started reading this book four days ago, but I kept having to put it down because there are so many utterly terrible scenes. On the one hand I wanted to keep reading but I also felt the need to protect myself from the vicious scenes.
This book is utterly harrowing and upsetting but I really do appreciate the journey Gary D Schmidt has taken me on. About halfway through this story I began to worry there might not be a happy ending so I decided to skim through a few reviews. Some said the ending was tragic, but I also read that the ending was hopeful. This means that when the most dreadful and devastating things happened to Turner, I simply did not believe them.
I should have read the Kirkus Star review more carefully:
There can be no happy ending to this story, but the telling is both beautiful and emotionally honest, both funny and piercingly sad.
Bookseller blurb: Set in 1912 and centered on a historical event, the moving and compelling coming-of-age story of Turner, a white minister's son who discovers joy through his friendship with a black girl, Lizzie, and finds his own strength and voice after painful losses transform his life. In this powerful and moving novel, Turner Buckminster, a preacher's son newly arrived in in Phippsburg, Maine, meets Lizzie Bright Griffin, a strong, spirited black girl from Malaga Island, a nearby island community founded by former slaves. All of Phippsburg, especially Turner's repressive father, disapproves of their friendship, but Turner ignores them; Lizzie is the wisest, most knowledgeable person he ever met. On top of knowing everything, she can row a boat and pitch a baseball like a champ. The town's move to turn the island into a tourist attraction destroys the powerless community, a historical event that occurred in 1912. It is the catalyst for a wave of personal losses that shakes Turner's world but leaves him whole.
Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy is a Young Adult title and I would say this book is best for ages 14+. The treatment of and prejudice towards African American citizens as explained in this story set in 1912 in Maine is certain to shock teenage readers here in modern Australia. It is also important to read the back notes which explain the actual historical events that inspired this novel.
If you are book talking Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy I would use the four covers I have shared above as a way to interest your library or class group. In the light of my earlier comments it is interesting to think about the age intention of these cover designs. I wouldn't use this with a high school group but I do wish I could find a soundtrack of all the hymns Turner plays to Mrs Cobb.
Take a look at this review. Here are some text quotes from this book:
Opening sentence: Turner Buckminster had lived in Phippsburg, Maine, for fifteen minutes shy of six hours. He had dipped his hand in its waves and licked the salt from his fingers. He had smelled the sharp resin of the pines. He had heard the low rhythm of the bells on the buoys that balanced on the ridges of the sea. He had seen the fine clapboard parsonage beside the church where he was to live, ...
He didn’t know how much longer he could stand it. Maybe somewhere out West there really were Territories that he could light out to, where being a minister’s son wouldn’t matter worth a . . . well, worth a darn. He hoped so, because here, being a minister’s son mattered a whole lot, and pretending that it didn’t matter to him was starting to peck at his soul.
Readers let's meet Lizzie Bright: She looked out at the thrusting tide, clenched her toes into the loose sand, and smelled the salty, piney air. At thirteen, she was, as her grandfather liked to remind her, one year older than the century, and so a good deal wiser. Too wise to stay on Malaga Island, he said, but she planned to stay there forever. Where else, after all, did the tide set a pale crab on your toe?
“More to the point,” said the tallest of the group—the one with the most expensive frock coat, the most expensive top hat, and the most expensive shiny shoes—“one less colored on Malaga Island.” Laughter from the group, louder than the gulls. “Though the issue is much larger than one colored.” His eye searched the pine shadows across the water for the girl, as if he sensed her watching him. His hands moved to the lapels of his coat. “The issue is how to relieve Malaga Island of the girl, her family, her neighbors, what she would call her house, what they would call their town.”
“Reverend Buckminster, behold the cross we bear in Phippsburg: a ragtag collection of hovels and shacks, filled with thieves and lazy sots, eking out a life by eating clams from the ocean mud, heedless of offers of help from either state or church, a blight on the town’s aspirations, a hopeless barrier to its future.”
The afternoon had become as hot as meanness, and since the shirt he was wearing had enough starch in it to mummify two, maybe three, pharaohs, he began to feel he could hardly breathe. The only thing that saved him from absolute suffocation was the sea breeze somersaulting and fooling, first ahead, then behind, running and panting like a dog ready to play.
In the clearing, sixty graves lay quiet and still, restful. Wood crosses with printed names too faded to read stood at their heads. Some had piles of pink-grained stones gathered from around the island placed carefully at the foot of each cross. Some had sprigs of violets, some fresh evergreen boughs.
She took a deep breath, and she wasn’t just breathing in the air. She breathed in the waves, the sea grass, the pines, the pale lichens on the granite, the sweet shimmering of the pebbles dragged back and forth in the surf, the fish hawk diving to the waves, the dolphin jumping out of them. She would not ebb.
And suddenly, Turner had a thought that had never occurred to him before: he wondered if his father really believed a single thing he was saying. And suddenly, Turner had a second thought that had never occurred to him before: he wondered if he believed a single thing his father was saying.
Turner felt the cold of the place come into him. He could not move. It was as though the bricks surrounded him and him alone. He felt that he would never escape them, never see anyone he loved again, never see the ocean waves again. That he would always be cold, and the cold would be in him more than around him.
Companion book:
You may have read my previous post about the Newbery Award where I set myself a challenge to read more of the honor book titles. Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy (2004) was one title on my list - partly because the title sounded intriguing and partly because I recognised the author's name.
I previously read these books by Gary D Schmidt:
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