Gary Schmidt – a Total Find

Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy by Gary D. Schmidt

Newberry Medal Winner

Suitable for Ages 12 +

Turner Ernest Buckminster III is the thirteen-year-old son of the Rev. Turner
Ernest Buckminster II. When Rev. Buckminster gets offered a job in Phippsburg,
Maine, he takes it and moves his wife and son from Boston to Phippsburg.
Turner’s life is in disarray, without friends in a new town he seems at a loss
until he is befriended by a girl called Lizzie Bright from nearby Malaga Island.

This is a charmingly sad, but not hopeless, story of an unlikely friendship
between two people from vastly different backgrounds. It portrays the emotions
of growing up and the development of relationships in a new and refreshing
light. Gary Schmidt uses beautiful descriptions to illustrate this story which
is based on actual events and people, describing a little-known, but shameful
event in history.

The author, Gary D Schmidt sounds like an interesting guy.  He lives on
a farm in Michigan, he is married and has six children.  He is a
Professor of English at Calvin College. 

Gary D Schmidt is new to our family and we consider him to be a total
‘find’.  Since reading Lizzie Bright we have been searching out
and collecting his novels, and enjoying a wonderful read-fest. His writing is
beautifully paced, it has flavour and texture. It presents an honest and
true-to-life picture of youth and developing maturity. And I, as an adult
looking back on adolescence, identified with the frustration and confusion of an
adolescent looking at an adult world.

Get these books. Collect them. Add them to your Christmas list. Put them in the
Christmas Stockings of those you love. You won’t regret it.

Try also: The Wednesday Wars, First Boy, Okay for Now (not yet available – this
is the first book I have ever pre-ordered in my entire life!)  And anything
else by Gary D Schmidt.

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