[CALIBK12] Richie's Picks: CHAINS

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Richie's Picks: CHAINS by Laurie  Halse Anderson, Simon & Schuster, October 
2008, 314p., ISBN:  1-4169-0585-5
 
"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
Richie's Picks http://richiespicks.com
Moderator,  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/middle_school_lit/
BudNotBuddy at aol.com
http://www.myspace.com/richiespicks





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