Lizzie Bright And The Buckminster Boy

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2004

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.

Download PDF

Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-2

Chapters 3-5

Chapters 6-8

Chapters 9-10

Chapter 11-Afterword

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Chapters 9-10Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 9 Summary

Turner’s parents look the other way while he continues visiting Lizzie and her grandfather in Malaga. Lizzie occasionally shows up at Mrs. Cobb’s when Turner is there. One day, Mrs. Cobb seems as though she is about to pass away while Turner is playing. He rushes to follow her instructions of writing down her last words. However, Mrs. Cobb revives as Turner and Lizzie are arguing about the wording of her speech and seems to be back to her normal self. She sends Turner and Lizzie into the other room to get her a soda, and when they come back, they discover that she has peacefully passed away. This means that her last words were not the poetic Scripture passage she quoted, but a request for them to get her a drink.

As the townspeople gather at Mrs. Cobb’s after her death (before which Lizzie quietly leaves the house), Mr. Stonecrop instructs Turner to write down Mrs. Cobb’s last words, to be read aloud at her funeral. Later, Turner slips away and finds Lizzie, who says that her grandfather is going to die. At Mrs. Cobb’s funeral, Turner gives his father a piece of paper with her last words written on them. Reverend Buckminster recites a psalm instead of reading what was on the paper. Turner and Lizzie help cover Mrs. Cobb’s grave, and Lizzie insinuates that she won’t be there in the spring to help Turner plant flowers on it.

Shortly afterward, Mrs. Cobb’s will is read, and everyone—including Turner and his father—is astonished to discover that she left her house to Turner. Mr. Stonecrop wants the Buckminsters to transfer it to the town, where he feels it should have been left in the first place, but Turner instead wants to offer it to Lizzie. He rushes to Malaga to tell her, where he discovers that Reverend Griffin died and has been buried on the island.

Chapter 10 Summary

Still on Malaga, Turner offers Lizzie Mrs. Cobb’s house. She tells him that the townspeople will never let her live alongside them. Mr. Stonecrop comes to Turner’s house and demands that Turner relinquish Mrs. Cobb’s bequest. When Turner refuses, saying that he wants Lizzie and another island family to live in the house, his father defends him. Mr. Stonecrop swears that he will ensure that Lizzie and other Black residents of Malaga will never live alongside white people in Phippsburg.

Many of the townspeople begin to boycott Turner’s father’s church to protest the Buckminsters’ actions. One week, Willis warns Turner that something bad will happen that night. Assuming that Willis is referring to Mrs. Cobb’s house, Turner sneaks into the house after his parents go to bed. Once there, he discovers a glass-roofed cupola on the top floor while trying to find a trespasser in the house. Once in the cupola, someone locks him in to prevent him from interfering with the town’s true purpose: removing Lizzie and the other Malaga residents to the same hospital that Mrs. Hurd’s family sent her to. An outraged Turner can see lanterns in Malaga from his vantage point in the cupola and shatters the glass windows to escape. He runs to the cliffs of the mainland, but he quickly realizes that there’s nothing he can do to stop the townspeople. The sheriff threatens Turner with his shotgun, saying that one of the island residents threatened him with it and warning Turner to stay away from the Malaga residents.

Turner’s father finds the sheriff and his son. Reverend Buckminster begins fist-fighting with the sheriff on top of the cliffs, angry that the man threatened his son. As Turner watches in horror, his father falls off the cliffs during the scuffle.

Chapters 9-10 Analysis

These chapters contain many of the events that will converge to make Lizzie vulnerable at the end of the book. First, she becomes distant from Turner, which makes him unable to help her as effectively as he could have if he knew of her circumstances earlier. Then her grandfather dies, leaving her without an adult family member to protect her. Finally, all the Malaga residents are forcibly removed from the island, wrenching Lizzie from her beloved home and serving as a reminder of how powerless she is within the hierarchies of the book. Lizzie’s removal from the island is an emotional climax of the book as Turner’s worst fears about her future come to pass. Although he wants to help Lizzie by giving her and her friends Mrs. Cobb’s house, Turner quickly realizes that the attitudes of the Phippsburg townspeople will never allow this outcome. He is more privileged than Lizzie in the town’s social landscape, Turner is also ultimately powerless against the will of the townspeople.

Another important emotional climax also takes place in Chapter 10 as Turner’s father plummets from the cliffs. Reverend Buckminster’s various reactions to Turner’s actions throughout the book, from frustrated to supportive, and his decision to introduce his son to Darwin’s ideas, underscore how conflicted he is. The Reverend’s fall serves to remind Turner of the most important aspects of life, and illustrates how far the townspeople will go to carry out their forceful removal of the Malaga community. Reverend Buckminster is literally pushed out of the way as the leading businessmen of the town figuratively push away any moral or religious obligations preventing them from achieving their goals. The effective removal of his father from his life forces Turner to transition into a more adult role in his family, helping his mother decide his family’s future and interacting with Mr. Stonecrop in his own right. Reverend Buckminster’s removal from the town itself is the final emotional climax for the townspeople as well, as the consequences of their own actions begin to negatively impact themselves and those around them.