Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy

Rating:
Summary: Richie's Picks: LIZZIE BRIGHT AND THE BUCKMINSTER BOY
Review: "From so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved."
--Charles Darwin, THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES

"Like angels appearing in the sky,
whales are proof of God."
--Cynthia Rylant, THE WHALES

Because it is based upon a series of true, race-related events in Maine during the early 1900s, LIZZIE BRIGHT AND THE BUCKMINSTER BOY might make you think of Karen Hesse's WITNESS. Several of the "good guy" characters--Mrs. Carr and the elder Mrs. Hurd, for example--have a charm reminiscent of the idiosyncratic folk in BECAUSE OF WINN-DIXIE. But, because of the depth of the evil behind the tragic real events upon which the fictional story of Lizzie and Turner is built, the feelings of despair and anger with which we're left evoke memories of such books as MISSISSIPPI TRIAL, 1955 and TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD.

The enchanting Lizzie Bright Griffin, a girl of great strength and few words, belongs to the youngest of many generations of African Americans who have called Malaga Island home.

"Lizzie held close against her grandfather as the people of Malaga Island came out from the pine woods, gathered around their preacher on the shore to hear what had been said. Before they turned, Lizzie felt her grandfather ebb as though his soul were passing out of him, the way the last waves of a falling tide pass into still air and are gone. "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.
"Then she turned with her grandfather to tell the gathering people of Malaga that times had moved on, and they would have to leave their homes."

Across the water, on the mainland, Turner is the new kid in town. And even worse--from his perspective--he's the new minister's son.

"Turner Buckminster had lived in Phippsburg, Maine, for almost six whole hours.
"He didn't know how much longer he could stand it."

Here, as with the fight over the towers in Elaine Konigsburg's THE OUTCASTS OF 19 SCHUYLER PLACE, the root of conflict involves money and property values. Phippsburg's shipbuilding industry is dying, and the local "boys with the bucks" reckon that tourism may be the source of future prosperity if only the "less desirable" portion of the community can be run out of town.

" 'Would you look at that monkey go? Look at her go. She climbing down or falling?' Deacon Hurd watched the last leap to the ground. 'Sheriff Elwell, I believe she thought you might shoot her.'
" 'Wouldn't have been any trouble, Mr. Hurd. One less colored in the world.' "

The character who is most difficult to decipher in this story of Turner's coming of age is his father. Reverend Buckminster was hired by the church leadership and is supposed to be serving God. However, he is being pulled in various directions: by the white community, by his own knowledge and conscience (or sometimes lack thereof), and by the beliefs of the maturing son he apparently loves, albeit in a stiff, 1912 Congregationalist ministerial fashion.

"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."

Reverend Buckminster is but one of several characters who end up throwing Turner a curveball.

The innocent, against-all-odds friendship that develops between Turner and Lizzie repeatedly caused me shivers, delight, and despair. It is first among the many reasons why LIZZIE BRIGHT AND THE BUCKMINSTER BOY is an entertaining and important piece of YA historic fiction. (...)