Slave Dancer

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Summary: The Slave Dancer
Review: Durring my 8th grade year one of our assignments was to readHarper Lee's classic To Kill a Mockingbird. To Kill a Mockingbird is astory about racism in the south at the time of the great depression. Durring this assignment I independently read The Slave Dancer by Paula Fox. The Slave Dancer is a story about racism aboard a slave ship in the 1700s. I read the two books to see if differences in time had any effect on the differences of racism. The Slave Dancer was from the point of view of a little boy kidnapped from his home in the carribean and forced to work on a slave ship. He is treated like a slave himself and he sees horrible wrong doings done to the blacks. After reading both books, I can clearly see that many white Americans had the same prejudice towards the blacks as the 1700s. I enjoyed reading The Slave Dancer although it was extremly depressing.

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Summary: The Slave Dancer
Review: I chose the book The Slave Dancer By: Paula Fox. This book wasvery interesting to me. It is about a boy who is leading a normallife, and runs an errand for his mother. While he is gone, somesailors kidnap him. When he discovers where he is, it is too late. They have already taken him into the sea. He lives on a boat, which is used to transport slaves, as a ship boy for months. Jessie, the main character, is a good-hearted boy and has trouble being involved in the slave trade. At one point, he is beaten because of his compassion towards the future African slaves. Eventually most of the slaves die, he actually watches some of them be thrown overboard, both living and dead. In the end, the boat sinks, but Jessie and a little boy that he had bonded with earlier survive. However, this book truly hits home with many thoughts of racism today. The discussion of the slaves in general is very good for a child to hear. It portrays how the slaves were treated and how young innocent white boys were made to help in the torture of the slaves. When Jessie feels compassion towards them and is beaten for it, this explains a lot. The captain and others try to make Jessie feel hatred towards these African slaves. This is the way that many people were brought up. With these negative attitudes people have, many of them are raising their children the same way. I think that Paula Fox did a wonderful job of portraying this idea. I looked at this book as a "book people" book. The book is telling the truth in every way possible. It uses great detail in describing some of the events. It even gets gory in some parts. Not many children's books do this, and get by with it. It actually has a Grimm brothers sort of approach. Fox tells things the way they were; she does not "soften" them up for the children. The other side, however, would say the book was not fit for children due to the gore of it and even some language. In an article written by Sarah Hinlicky entitled "Don't Write About Race", she discusses the topic of race in writing, including children's literature. Hinlicky gives many good reasons why people don't write about racial issues. Hinlicky says that one of the main reasons is fear. She says that "the wise writer observes the rules and politely declines to write about race." This keeps them from being tortured and ridiculed for writing about racial issues. In the end of the article she proposes a very powerful statement: Black America and white America are different cultures, these cultures still distrust one another. Moving across color lines also means moving across culture lines...Maybe there's an answer I've found, but I think I'd better quit now, since I'm not supposed to be writing about race in the first place. This statement is important in saying how people think they aren't supposed to discuss the topic. I think it is almost challenging for people to look at it in Hinlicky's light. I think I take a book people stand. Children need to know the truth in the history of acts such as this. They cannot keep the truth from the children, or that will lead to children who have racial tension. Many children today are misinformed of this part of history. Both black children and white children are confused with their facts in this matter. Fox describes Jessie's story very well. Jessie is made to feel hatred towards these slaves. He is given no choice. This is the way many children are today. They believe what they hear from their parents, teachers, and books. Some of this information may be true, but most of it just confuses the children even more. The Slave Dancer should be an important part of education everywhere in America. It tells the story well, of both the slaves and the people who were forced to help in their trade. Hinlicky's article would also be a good article to teach children as a reference to The Slave Dancer.

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Summary: Literary Analysis of The Slave Dancer by Paula Fox
Review: This book informs and educates you about the horrors of slavery. There are many blacks that get sold or traded and put on ships. They get tortured, some live but some do not. {The Slave dancer has good use of literary devices and has and interesting setting.} Paula Fox has many literary devices in each thrilling chapter. "The air was faintly scented with the aroma of flowers which grew along the walled garden belonging to the rich family", is an explanation of imagery. "I was so intoxicated by my vision that I rose upon my toes as though to meet the fate i had invented", is also an exoample of imagery. "I wondered if my father's bones lay somewhere nearby, white as chalk on the river bottom", is an important line that expresses a simile. The setting is different from many stories. It is on a boat that travels to pick up black slaves for trading or selling. The boat travels to many countries, buying and selling blacks. "We'll be in Cuban waters a day or so", is an example of one of the places the boat traveled. A young boy gets put on this boat as someone who plays the fiddle for the crew and slaves. He goes on the journey with everyone else. The setting and words that Paula Fox used are different from many books and are well thought out.

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Summary: Tuckahoe Fourth Grader Who Enjoyed This Book
Review: The year is 1840. Thirteen year old Jessie Bollier is walking home through the streets of New Orleans when he is kidnapped. The kidnappers put him on a slaver, a boat that goes to Africa to get slaves and bring them to America to be sold. On his journey he sees the horrors of slavery and he is sickened. The book's title comes from Jessie's job: Jessies job is to play his fife so the slaves will dance and get exercise. Then they can be sold for higher prices. During the journey, to keep the slave ship from being stopped, all but one of the slaves - a young boy named Ras - are thrown into the shark-filled waters. Then a storm hits and Jessie and Ras hide below. Will the ship sink? Will Jessie and Ras survive? Will Jessie be able to go home? To find out, read this exciting book. My favorite part is when Purvis, an older sailor, befriends Jessie by telling him jokes and giving him hope. I recommend this book to people who like historic fiction and who like exciting but sad stories.

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Summary: The Slave Dancer- A powerful tale
Review: This book is powerful and packs a punch, it illustrates the obsienity and the pure disgustingness of the slave trade, if you have a weak stomach, do not read this book.

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Summary: The Slave Dancer by Paula Fox
Review: I read this novel when it was assigned to my child's fifth grade class. The book provides vivid imagery of a young boy's kidnapping and forced servitude aboard a slave ship. Fox's skillful narrative style is filled with detailed description and allegory. However, I must strongly disagree with Amazon's (and the publisher's?) classification of the novel as a book for 9-12 year olds. The vocabulary is so difficult that myself and my husband, both of us well read, college educated people, did not know some of the words. It also deals with cruel happenings and racism in such a way that I believe make the book suitable only for more mature readers. Therefore, I would recommend this chronicle only for readers 13 years and older.

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Summary: The Slave Dancer
Review: The Slave Dancer was an outstanding book about a boy named Jessie and a slave ship called the "Moonlight." This story takes place in New Orleans in on the slave ship, he is in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Jessie is a 13 years old boy who is very brave and confident. Jessie was kidnapped while taking a shortcut to his grandmother's house. Several men bashed him upon his head and took him hostage upon the "Moonlight." On this ship is a slave ship and is transporting slaves. Jesse made friends with a boy slave, who was friendly to him. While he was on the "Moonlight" he had to play music on his fife, so the slaves could dance and entertain the crew members. Will he have to continue this the rest of his life? Paula Fox uses very strong, descriptive language, especially when she describes the environment. She allows the reader to easily imagine the surroundings. We would reccomend this book to children ages 11 and up!

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Summary: The Slave dancer
Review: This book is a great one and I recommend you buy it. It is filled with great plots from begining to end. Young Jessie is captured and sent abord a slave ship to dance the slaves to keep them healthy. When the ship crashes, he and a black boy named Rass are the only ones who make it asore. There they find an old man who helps them both. In the end Jessie makes it home. To find his mother and sister there just the way he left them 5 months ago. (his father died a long time ago) It was a very happy ending! I loved this book because it kept me interestered from beginning to end with all the plots and detials in it. This was truly a great book!

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Summary: Powerful, realistic, and horribly depressing.
Review: This is a convincing and terrifying tale of a 13-year-old Creole boy's kidnap, and subsequent ordeal at sea on a small slaver. The boy himself is little more than a slave on board the ship, where his most important function is to play music to assist in forcing the slaves to exercise regularly.

Worse than the physical trials of his overwork, partial starvation and thirst, are the emotional ordeals which the boy goes through. Jessie is emotionally alone on a ship full of self-absorbed men devoid of empathy. When the new-bought slaves are brought on board, he is the only one on the ship human enough to identify with their anguish.

It is a depressingly real view of our venal world. People are sold into slavery by their own greedy kings. Bribery and corruption bring anti-slavery laws to nought. Men turn on their own supposed friends for profit, and money persuades relatively normal men to ignore the humanity of their victims.

This book presents no fully good characters. There are only varied gradations of evil. The only man on the ship who shows some rough concern for Jessie's welfare is an Irishman whose resentment of his own ethnic group's trials has somehow rebounded into a hatred of most other ethnic groups. He hates the French (Jessie is half French) and despises the slaves as less than human. Yet he has more capacity for affection than any of the others.

This book is not merely entertainment. It should be given only to intelligent and mature kids, and should be discussed with them and explained by an intelligent and sensitive adult. It will horrify readers of any color and ethnicity, for it is not merely concerned with the inhumanity of the American slave trade, but with the larger theme of man's inhumanity to man.

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Summary: wonderful, yet frightful read
Review: I feel it is my duty to defend this book, especially after I read a few previous reviews(see below.) Certainly it is very easy to see the school age children's reviews compared to the reviews adults write...

This book was awarded the John Newbery Award in 1974, this award is for the most distinguished children's book published the previous year.

In her acceptance speech, Paula Fox traced the genesis of the novel to a footnote in a history book, which stated that crews of slave ships would kidnap young street musicians to serve as "slave dancers". Fox states..."When I read the records of the past, I sometimes wanted to turn away from what I was learning-to sleep. But as I read on and heard the words of the captive people themselves, as I began to feel the power of their endurance, I perceived that the people who had spoken so long ago of every conceivable human loss were not only survivors, but pioneers of the human condition in inhuman circumstances."

When reading this novel one realizes that slavery diminishes the oppressors as well as the oppressed. The graphic scenes of horror neither sensationalizes nor exploits the material.

This is a great book for a class to read, with unlimited posibilities for thematic conections, to include lectures and assignments on survival, trust, prejudice, guilt, friendship, history, geography, math, science, and the study of language.

Although this is a graphic, realistic picture of one of the most shameful aspects of our history, this is a must read for students; for those very same reasons. Jesse is well developed, and we feel the physical and emotional agonies he suffers, especially when his conscience can no longer bear the burden of his guilt and shame.

I hope you enjoy SLAVE DANCER as much as I have, and as a young adult librarian I will continue to recommend this book every chance I get, and certainly parents should read the book before just handing it over to their child...imagine the hours on conversation you can have with your child if you read it together!