Richie's Picks: Great Books for Children and Young Adults

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"Two black butterflies danced through a cloud of bugs and disappeared."

In the late spring of 1776, at the crudely-marked grave where her mother is buried, a girl named Isabel seeks divine, motherly, guidance. She is here this day because, in the adjoining, whites-only cemetery, they are in the process of burying Miss Mary Finch who has owned Isabel, her little sister Ruth, and their deceased mother.

And serious treachery is soon to follow:

"I stood up proper, the way I had been taught -- chin up, eyes down -- took Ruth by the hand, and walked over to the men.
"'Pardon me, Pastor Weeks, sir,' I said. 'May I ask something?'
"He set his hat on his head. 'Certainly, Isabel.'
"I held Ruth's hand tighter. 'Where do you think we should go?'
"'What do you mean, child?'
"'I know I'll find work, but I can't figure where to sleep, me and Ruth. I thought you might know a place.'
"Pastor Weeks frowned. 'I don't understand what you're saying, Isabel. You're to return with Mr. Robert here. You and your sister belong to him now.'
"I spoke slowly, saying the words I had practiced in my head since Miss Mary Finch took her last breath, the words that would change everything. 'Ruth and me are free, Pastor. Miss Finch freed us in her will. Momma, too, if she had lived. It was done up legal, on paper with wax seals.'
"Mr. Robert snorted. 'That's enough out of you, girl. Time for us to be on the road to Newport.'
"'Was there a will?' Pastor Weeks asked him.
"'She didn't need one,' Mr. Robert replied. 'I was Aunt Mary's only relative.'
"I planted my feet firmly in the dirt and fought to keep my voice polite and proper. 'I saw the will, sir. After the lawyer wrote it, Miss Mary had me read it out loud on account of her eyes being bad.'
"'Slaves don't read,' Mr. Robert said. 'I should beat you for lying, girl.'"

In fact, Miss Mary Finch had taught Isabel to read. Miss Mary Finch had also signed the will. But, of course, the lawyer is gone now, out of touch, somewhere in Boston behind the blockade, and Miss Mary is dead. And so Isabel, who has been waiting day after day for this particular day to arrive, is, instead, hastily sold by Mr. Robert, along with Ruth, to a Loyalist couple preparing to head home to what is now lower Manhattan.

Thus begins the horror show that is the result of Isabel being under the ownership of the despicable Mrs. Anne Lockton. Meanwhile, the Revolutionary war is being waged at close proximity around them.

Over the past year, I have been repeatedly booktalking Christopher Paul Curtis's ELIJAH OF BUXTON, one of my favorites of 2007, that has since garnered the Coretta Scott King Medal and a Newbery Honor. In the course of presenting ELIJAH to adolescents -- a tale set in 1860 amidst the community of escaped slaves at Buxton -- I always ask rhetorically whether the students can begin to imagine what it would be to suffer lifelong enslavement.

Here is a story to help feed such imagination. CHAINS is a gripping, vivid, horrific, day-to-day, in-your-face, first-person tale of enslavement and treachery. As Laurie Halse Anderson reveals through the story -- and further explains in her extensive, source-filled, Author Note -- there were no good guys versus bad guys when it came to slavery and the two sides in the Revolutionary War. The slaves became pawns who were repeatedly manipulated through hollow, deceptive promises to support and/or aid one side or the other.

And so Isabel must come to recognize that she is essentially on her own in her quest for freedom.

"I fought against tears and lost; they fell to the dust in big drops too. If I cried a river, maybe I could swim away, or slip under the water to freedom.
"The man in the dusty coat said something to the man in the leather apron. I could not hear him because of the noise of the crowd and the crackling coals and the beat of my heart in my ears. The men walked toward me. The dandelions were lemon yellow with bright green leaves and thick stalks pointing at the sky.
"At home in Rhode Island, the corn was as tall as Ruth now. The spring lambs would be too heavy to pick up. The new goat, he'd be running headfirst into every fence post. This was a good day to bleach the wool.
"The man with the leather apron pinned my head against the wood. He stank of charcoal. I tried to pull away, but my hands and head were locked fast. The splinters chewed on me. Dandelions grew in the mud.
"The glowing iron streaked in front of my face like a comet.
"The crowd roared.
"The man pushed the hot metal against my cheek. It hissed and bubbled. Smoke curled under my nose.
"They cooked me."

I was thoroughly caught up in CHAINS. Will Isabel ever gain her freedom? Will her ability to read help her find a way to finally escape Mrs. Lockton or will it be a cause for even more punishment?

At a moment in US history when we celebrate how far our nation has come -- from the original sin of slavery in the Constitution to the promise of a better America that I see in our nomination of Barack Obama for president -- Laurie Halse Anderson has created a stunning, realistic tale of slavery at the time of the Revolution.

Richie Partington, MLIS
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