Chains

Anderson, L. H. (2008). Chains. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN-10: 1-4169-0585-5

Why read this book

We think of the American Revolution as a glorious founding of a free nation, of patriots fighting to free themselves from British tyranny. But what did that fight look like to a young African-American girl who was held in slavery? Which side should she choose when neither side cared about her freedom?

Plot summary

In 1776 Isabel is a 13-year-old African American girl who has lived with her 5-year-old sister Ruth on a small farm in Rhode Island until the elderly woman who owners them dies and the woman’s nephew sells them to a wealthy New York merchant. Life in a mansion in New York city is much more restricted than what Isabel and Ruth had known on the farm, especially because the merchant’s wife has a mean streak. The tumult of the beginning of the American War of Independence complicates matters as the merchant, who is loyal to the British, conspires with other loyalists to oppose Washington’s military occupation of New York. Isabel’s only friend is Curzon, a young African American boy enslaved by a patriot leader. Curzon convinces Isabel to spy on the merchant, promising in return that the patriots will help her and Ruth return to Rhode Island. Isabel doesn’t want to get involved, but her despair and her resistance to enslavement grow when Madam sells Ruth to an unknown party. When Isabel confronts Madam, Madam attacks her, and Isabel ends up in jail, tried in court, and branded on her check with an “I” for “insolence.” Life gets increasingly difficult as the British re-take New York from the patriot army and Curzon ends up as a prisoner of war.

Critical evaluation

Chains begs to be compared with Octavio Nothing, the young adult novel by Matthew Tobin Anderson (2006). Aside from the coincidence of having the same last names, both authors are European Americans writing in the voice of young African Americans during the Revolutionary War. A major theme in each novel is the way in which the struggle for freedom means something very different for the narrator than it does for most white patriots. Both stories are multi-volume novels, and the first volume in each case ends with a dramatic escape across a river and unresolved plot threads to be continued in the next volume. Chains even parallels Octavio’s use/abuse as a curiosity by his owners when Madam briefly treats Ruth as her toy, dressing Ruth in fine clothes and showing her off to women visitors.

I find Octavio Nothing to be a richer narrative than Chains. Octavio’s odd upbringing as a scientific experiment and his relationship with his mother offer opportunities to develop themes and characters that are missing in Chains, which is a comparatively simple story. Octavio’s classical education justifies his astute observations about the people and events around him, while some of Isabel’s cleverness is hard to believe, as when she decides to take crucial information she has found in the merchant’s house to the patriot army headquarters rather than pass it on to Curzon, as she has done before, or when she checks a tide chart before making her escape across the Hudson River. Anderson’s story device of Octavio’s classical education also skirts the difficult issues of language in the first-person narrations. Octavio can speak the language of educated Europeans and colonials, something easier for a contemporary white author to pull off than the 18th century African-American language that Laurie Halse Anderson’s plot calls for in Chains.

About the author

Laurie Halse Anderson was born in upstate New York in 1961. She graduated from Georgetown University in 1984 with a degree in languages and linguistics. Speak (1999) was her first young adult novel to be published, although she had previously published children’s books and she began the young adult historical novel Fever, 1793 (2000) before she began Speak. Speak was a commercial and critical success, winning numerous awards, and Anderson followed it up with contemporary young adult fiction (Catalyst, 2002; Prom, 2005; Twisted, 2008; Wintergirls, 2009) as well as the historical fiction of Chains and its forthcoming sequel, Forge (Anderson, S. H., 2008).

Genre: African American, Historical fiction

Curriculum ties

Chains is a great book for 8th grade English/language arts classes to read while the students are studying the Revolutionary War in history class. Chains encourages students to think more deeply about the concept of freedom than many conventional textbook narratives and it brings to life a time and place where the Revolution was fought. Anderson’s web site provides questions to guide students’ reading and discussion of Chains, and it also includes a list of links to primary sources that Anderson used when researching her project. That provides a great opportunity for history teachers to develop lessons that explain how we use primary sources to understand the past.

Book-talking ideas

• Read excerpts from Chapter V’s description of Isabel and Ruth’s arrival at the docks in New York. The descriptions of the setting, the intrigue over the trunk that Madam doesn’t want the inspectors to open, and Madam’s brutal treatment of Isabel give potential readers a good idea of the story they’ll find in Chains.

Reading level/interest age

A strength of Chains over Octavian Nothing is that the former is more accessible for younger teen readers. That is especially important in states like California, where the Revolutionary War is taught primarily in the 8th grade. For older teens interested in this topic, I would recommend the Octavian Nothing series.

Challenge issues

Chains doesn’t include any sexual situations, but, like Octavian Nothing, Chains challenges the generally held notion that the nation’s founding fathers were ardent champions of liberty whose heroism on our behalf should be honored above all else. Thus some might object that Chains is too subversive to be promoted among impressionable teenagers.

Responses

• Remind the challenger of the policy (in the case of the San Francisco Public Library) to present “all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.”

• Inform the challenger that the book is regarded as generally historically accurate.

• Direct the challenger to the list on the publisher’s Web site of awards the book has received (http://writerlady.com/Chains/), including being a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award for young adult literature, the 2009 Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction, and the 2009 Top 10 Black History Books for Youth.

Why I chose to read this book

After reading Anderson’s Speak, I wanted to see what she would do with historical fiction.

References

Anderson, M. T. (2006). The astonishing life of Octavian Nothing: Traitor to the nation; Vol. 1: The pox party. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick Press.

Anderson, S. H. (2008). Officially long official biography of Laurie Halse Anderson. Laurie Halse Anderson. Retrieved October 25, 2009, from www.writerlady.com