"Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy" is a young-adult historical novel that was written by Gary D. Schmidt and it was published in 2004. In essence, "Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy" evidences the always-present conflict that has existed in the United States between white people and African Americans from the very beginning and even after the Civil War. The story narrates the life of Turner, a young white boy from Massachusetts who moves with his family, and pastor father Reverend Buckminster, to Phippsburg, Maine, in 1912. There, he not only has to face his difficulty with social acceptance because he is different from other people in many ways, but he also has to face the consequences of befriending a girl of color, Lizzie, in a community that has evident prejudice against African Americans, and his own father, who, at first, puts his own standing in the new community over the welfare of his own son. The main conflict in the story is the desire of the people of Phippsburg to get rid of the black people who live in Malaga Island, just across from them, where Lizzie also resides. Maybe one of the most difficult things Turner has to face is the constant conflict he has with his father, Reverend Buckminster because of his friendship with Lizzie, and this particular excerpt evidences that "the reverend is always critical of him". Because Turner expresses that his father will always think first about things he criticizes of his son, rather than to think well of him.
