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Title: Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy
ISBN: 0553494953
Author:
Gary D. Schmidt
Publicate Date: 2006-04-25
Publish: 2006-04-25
List Price: $6.50
Average Customer Rating: 4.5
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $2.93
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $2.61
Amazon Merchant Price: $6.50
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Good story.
Very good story. I enjoyed readint it. My granddaughter will hopefully enjoy it also.
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2: A book for all ages
This book won the Newberry Honor book for a reason. In my opinion it should have been the Winner. This is a thougthful, well written book. It is full of great characters in a thought provoking story. Seeing the story of Malaga Island and the town of Phippsburg through the wise young eyes of Turner Buckminster was brilliant. Gary Schmidt is a master at telling the story of "adolescents turning their face toward adulthood." I heard Gary say those very words last week when I heard him speak at a local community dinner. I was very moved by all he talked about. It is clear that he is a gifted storyteller on paper and in voice. Lizzie Bright tells an important story about ignorance, prejudice and growing up. As an adult who loves to read well written juvenile fiction, I am looking forward to more great books by Gary Schmidt.
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3: Lizzie Bright Review
I bought this book for class. It was very well written. The ending was hard to deal with, but it was excellent and a good background to the history of Malaga Island. I would suggest this for anyone who likes a good read. This also good for educators to introduce race relations in Maine.
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4: "I Have Some Friends Before Me Gone"
I picked this book up from the children's section because of its setting -- a town on the Maine coast in 1912. Any sentimental notions I had of a cozy read about my home state were soon shredded. "Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy" tells the true story of a sad blot on Maine history -- the eviction of a 125-year-old settlement of African Americans from an island off the town of Phippsburg. The town's ship-building industry was dying and the town fathers wanted to build a resort hotel on the mainland bluff overlooking Malaga Island; the "squatters' shacks" were not deemed a suitable landscape for that development.
Thirteen-year-old Turner Buckminster is new in town, the minister's son, lonely and isolated. He finds Maine an inhospitable venue compared to his former life in Boston, until he is befriended by Lizzie Bright, granddaughter of the Malaga Island minister. Though his father, influenced by the town's hatred of the islanders, forbids it, Turner becomes close to Lizzie and continues to spend time on the island.
One of the finest sub-plots of the book is Turner's relationship with crusty old Mrs. Cobb. He is sent by his father to play hymns on her organ and read to her, as punishment. Mrs. Cobb is obsessed with her eventual death and with having someone hear and record her last words. Turner hesitates to play hymns that might feed her obsession with death, but her favorite is "I Have Some Friends Before Me Gone." Mrs. Cobb turns out to be a wonderful friend to Turner -- and to Lizzie Bright.
Gary D. Schmidt writes about the natural landscape with poetic joy. The sea breeze is woven through the story like an unnamed supporting character: "He watched the day begin to settle into sleep. It yawned out a white fog the sea breeze carried in close to shore and left hovering there." The book is full of rich imagery of the sky, the sea, the land. You can almost hear the little cat feet of the fog.
By comparison, the characterization is somewhat shallow. Aside from the redemption of Turner's father, of Mrs. Cobb, and of Turner's arch-enemy Willis Hurd, the characters show little movement throughout the book. School Library Journal pegs the book for grades 6-9. If that age group is expected to value the lyrical representation of the natural world, they might also value more differentiation and growth in the characters.
In addition, the themes of discrimination and avarice are somewhat heavy-handed in presentation. Other reviewers of this book have noted that the characters are polarized: the townspeople totally intolerant and the Malagans the archetype of innocence.
These are the reasons I've given four stars rather than five. However it's a beautifully written story and a highly appropriate recipient of the Newbery Honor Medal. I recommend it for family reading and discussion.
As the Author's Note points out, you can take a field trip past Popham Beach to Phippsburg, but you won't see any hotels overlooking the strait to Malaga Island -- they were never built.
Linda Bulger, 2008
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5: did not enjoy modern camera angle
I found this a good read, I'm sure kids will enjoy it and not see too far beyond the quick moving plot and the somewhat typical good-guys/bad guys village.
As an adult reader, I did not enjoy the very modern camera angle the author used. There were some historical inaccuracies & modern biases that stuck out. (Lobstering was not a very honored or in demand profession at that time period--lobsters were the poor man's food. As a matter of fact, it was such a looked down upon food source, they fed it to prison and asylum inmates by the boat load. Schmidt could have used that as a device to get the main character to the asylum if he had researched it a bit more. Instead, he relied on a modern perception.)
The main character's clearly an example of "what if a kid from today was back there in time."
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