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Why We Love Gary Schmidt Paperbacks
This article is from our Summer Newsletter
Why We Love Gary Schmidt Paperbacks
Set in 1912 Maine and based on true events, Lizzie Bright and The Buckminster Boy (Random House) is the story of an unlikely friendship between Turner Buckminster III, a minister’s son, and Lizzie Bright Griffin, a poor girl from an island community founded by former slaves. Lizzie was awarded both Newbery and Printz honors in 2005. Horn Book calls it a “rich novel…that examines the best and worst of humanity.”
The Wednesday Wars (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) won Schmidt another Newbery Honor in 2008. As Booklist says in their starred review, Schmidt “makes the implausible believable and the everyday momentous. Seamlessly, he knits together the story’s themes: the cultural uproar of the 60s, the internal uproar of early adolescence, and the timeless wisdom of Shakespeare’s words… A gentle, hopeful, moving story.”
Just out in paperback, Trouble (Graphia) is the story of a traumatic car accident that quickly rips the seemingly perfect Smith family apart. Schmidt takes his time telling this tale, and the result is beautifully nuanced, quiet, and complex. School Library Journal calls Trouble “tautly constructed, metaphorically rich, emotionally gripping, and seductively told.”
Lizzie Bright and Trouble are both striking and funny, whereas The Wednesday Wars is just plain hilarious. All available in paperback. Ages 12–17.
