Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy (by Gary D. Schmidt)

But the town wants to attract tourists, and the first step is the elimination of the Malaga community. Turner's father, beset and manipulated by the Deacons of his church, supports their efforts, leaving only Turner to stand up for what is right. But doing the right thing is far more complicated than it seems and, as Lizzie often tells him, he "never can look at things straight."

The beautiful and wonderful forms that evolve here are the characters and their relationships and viewpoints, all complex, and all undergoing change. There's Turner, of course, struggling to live up to his father's teachings even when his father doesn't; Mrs. Cobb, a crusty old racist who learns to love a black girl and an ill-mannered boy; Willis, who seems to be a bully but has an ironclad sense of what's right; his father, Deacon Hurd, whose pride goeth before a fall; and many others, a Dickensian wealth of real characters. And evolution is not just individual -- the relationships and understandings between the characters change, and change again. This lovely, heartbreaking, and very real story doesn't always go where you think it will, but in the end it goes to a movingly spiritual place.