A MUST-READ

Now I know, I know, I KNOW I say this a lot.  But seriously, Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy is a must-read for everyone.   That cover over there is terrible.  Terrible.  The one under it is much better. Still, no cover could be good enough for this book.  It is just unreal and fantastic.  And I have no idea what kind of experience Gary D. Schmidt, who is one of my new most favorite writers, has with churches and working in church, but man, man, man he was right on with this one.  Right on!  Unreal!  Here is a great quote, "The congregation, Minister, will tell you what it thinks and what it wants you to think."  When I first typed that in, and I am sure this was a Freudian slip, I capitalized the word congregation.  Because some congregations (or at least some people in them) think that they are holier than God.  I am not saying that the church I served was like that.  It was a lovely, lovely place.  But there were a couple of folks who could have said that very sentence right there.  I am pretty sure they did, actually.

LBATBB introduced me to the horror of what happened on Malaga Island.  I had never heard of this island or the people who lived there and were forced to leave because of the color of their skin.  This is the story of a young boy who really stands up against a whole town.  It made me cry several times.  We should be ashamed, ashamed of the way that we have treated one another.  And the way we still treat one another.  

This is an incredible, incredible story.  Read it.  Now.