Jessies Melodie

by Paula Fox, Kai Kilian (Translator)

Jessie ist dreizehn und verdient sich mit seinem Flötenspiel ein bisschen Geld in den Docks von New Orleans. Doch dann wird er auf einen Sklavenfrachter verschleppt. Auf der »Moonlight« fährt er mit bis nach Afrika, wo schwarze Gefangene an Bord genommen werden. Jessie soll sie mit seiner Musik zum Tanzen verführen, damit sie die Strapazen der langen Überfahrt besser durchhalten. Monate vergehen ... Als Jessie endlich wieder in Amerika an Land geht, sind er und ein kleiner Junge die einzigen Überlebenden der Schiffsreise. Was ist unterwegs passiert?

Genres: Historical Fiction, Young Adult, Fiction, Childrens, Historical, Middle Grade, Classics

160 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1973

About the author

Paula Fox was an American author of novels for adults and children and two memoirs. Her novel The Slave Dancer (1973) received the Newbery Medal in 1974; and in 1978, she was awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Medal. More recently, A Portrait of Ivan won the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis in 2008.

A teenage marriage produced a daughter, Linda, in 1944. Given the tumultuous relationship with her own biological parents, she gave the child up for adoption. Linda Carroll, the daughter Fox gave up for adoption, is the mother of musician Courtney Love.

Fox then attended Columbia University, married the literary critic and translator Martin Greenberg, raised two sons, taught, and began to write.

Reviews

[Julie G · Rating 3 out of 5]

Back in 2020, while doing a Kids Read Across America project with my daughters, I discovered a book called Water Rat. It's an outstanding, swashbuckling coming-of-age story set at sea that never received the attention it deserved and went promptly out-of-print.

In contrast, this lackluster, unfocused coming-of-age story set at sea, THE SLAVE DANCER, earned the Newbery Medal in 1974.

Why?

Why do some worthy books earn nothing but obscurity and others achieve medals?

This YA novel had a few sparkly one-liners to offer, including this one: The truth came slowly like a story told by people interrupting each other.

Beyond that. . . this was some of the most uninspired writing I've encountered in a long time. Not one character on this ship was developed. As far as I'm concerned, every sailor was the same person. I'd read some dialogue aloud, then look at my 11-year-old, who suffered through this mess with me, and ask her, “Do you know who this is?” She would answer me with a slow shoulder shrug.

The characters were supposedly on a ship, but I couldn't picture any of it.

This is historical fiction, so, though it satisfied my 1970s project by being published at that time, the events in the story take place in 1840.

This could have been terribly exciting/interesting/upsetting, but it wasn't. How was this written by Paula Fox, the same author who wrote the quirky, memorable Desperate Characters ??

Was she asked to write this? I wonder.

This is definitely a YA, versus a middle grades read. The themes are far more mature. The recently abducted Africans on this ship are sometimes whipped and abused, and those who die on board are treated deplorably. There are hints of voyeurism and rape, as well, though they were both subtle enough not to be noticed my daughter.

But, at the risk of sounding callous. . . this story was so dull. . . I felt completely detached from all of it.

If someone were to argue with me, try to convince me that it was worth reading this for the anti-slavery message, I'd argue back: but, if you can't buy into any of it, the characters, the setting, the plot, the dialogue, then it has not made an impact on you as a reader.

Would you like to read a compelling anti-slavery story? How about Toni Morrison's Beloved? Margaret Walker's Jubilee? William Styron's The Confessions of Nat Turner?

My daughter insists on three stars (apparently she liked that the boy slept in a hammock), but, I'm thinking that this book deserves a burial at sea.

[O. Ouellette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book readers everywhere, please stay your hand (ALWAYS) and think for a moment before denouncing any book as "horrible," "uninteresting," or rating it a 1 or 2, regardless of your age or experience with reading. It is a shame that this book gets such low ratings from some just because its subject matter is serious or because the book itself is deemed "boring" or "not your thing." I see a terrible lack of patience, perseverance and open-mindedness in so many readers, young and old, and that is very saddening.

I first read this book when I was nine. I picked it up, thinking it was going to be a sort of adventure story (sailing and all, maybe some pirates), and was a little surprised when it wasn't adventuresome, when the themes were dark and serious and sometimes violent. The writing style was a little on the practical side (for lack of a better term, perhaps stuffy) as opposed to descriptive or conversational as one might expect from a young-adult narrative. So do you know what I did? I paused to pick up a dictionary, or I spent a few moments thinking about what the story was trying to tell me, even if I didn't know all the words all at once. Though this book did not stand out to me as a favorite, it was very memorable, and I always remembered it. The events were unexpected, the details were harsh but not unstomachable; they were necessary to be seen and heard.

This book is one of harsh truths. I have read reviews that say it reads like a cliche or that it was boring. It is neither. It presents a tale that never grows old: one not only of cruelty and mistreatment but a story from the lips and eyes of a child who, like the young reader who picked up this book, never had to confront the ideas of slavery and dismal living conditions before. This book is meaningful and gripping, a story I have remembered for years and years after the first reading. Most importantly, it made me think. It gave me a hunger to understand and learn. It taught me that not all books are enjoyable, but they can still be good and well worth your time.

Just because you have grown tired of hearing about the horrors of slavery does not mean it should not be explored. On the contrary, the fact that some would regard a book like this as over-exhausted material shows in my mind that more books like this SHOULD exist, that we are too desensitized to certain unsavory aspects of history, to the misfortune of others. If you read this book and said, "whites shouldn't have treated blacks badly, and we all know that, end of story," then I would challenge your views as a reader of literature AND a surveyor of history. That sort of apathy and simple-minded dismissiveness has no place in the avid reader's mind and heart.

[Peiman · Rating 3 out of 5]

پسر نوجوانی با مادر و خواهرش در نیواورلئان زندگی میکنه. مادر با خیاطی هزینه ی زندگی رو تامین میکنه. پدرش سالها پیش در دریا غرق شده. کار مورد علاقه ی پسر نی لبک زدنه و شده که بعضی وقتا با این کار چند سکه ای هم دشت کنه. روزی که برای گرفتن چند شمع به خونه ی عمه ش میره تصمیم میگیره از دورترین راه ممکن به خونه برگرده. در بین راه چند نفر اون رو میدزدن و به کشتی ای میبرن که در کار تجارت برده هست و این آغاز داستان پر ماجرای جسی در این داستانه. داستان تقریبا برای نوجوانان نوشته شده ولی همچنان به عنوان سرگرمی جالب و جذابه.ه
پ.ن: توی توضیحات گودریدز برای کتاب نوشته شده خواننده به همراه کودک سیاهپوستی که برای بردگی ربوده شده و به سرزمین دیگری انتقال میابد همراه میشود که کاملا غلطه. نه کودک سیاهپوسته و نه برای بردگی ربوده میشه!!!!ه

[Karina · Rating 3 out of 5]

"At first, I made a promise to myself: I would do nothing that was connected ever so faintly with the importing and sale ans use of slaves. But I soon discovered that everything I considered bore, somewhere along the way, the imprint of black hands." (PG. 174)

Newbery Award winner 1973

I was pleasantly surprised by this small book. I learned about how white children in the streets would get kidnapped and taken on slave ships which led me to Google about this time in history.

This is a children's book. I will say this is a very heavy read as I was warned by @Julie. I do not think my 11 year-old son would understand the depth or feelings of the book. I always keep the time of when something is published in mind so I don't get all judgmental or shocked into anger or better yet "Does it go with the story?" And in this case I will say YES. The book uses the N word plenty of times and let's the reader know the slave holders think they are unworthy, unfeeling apes. Like I said, a heavy, sad, book.

The part that interested me most is when I read that their own Africans were selling slaves to the Portuguese and Americans to sell in Cuba or to the Americas. It was a very interesting fact. I had heard about it but never paid attention to it. So I Googled again and I found that yes there were in fact prosperous African men selling other human beings (in several cases Queen Ana Nzinga and Prince Infante D. Henrique and Pope Nicholas V). On the internet article I read it said it was common practice at that time to be sold in cases of outstanding debt, exchange for exotic goods, etc. Even when the practice of slavery became outlawed in the Western world these same sellers were confused and distraught that their "merchandise" wouldn't be selling anymore. (Website for anyone interested 'My Nigerian great-grandfather sold slaves' on bbc.com) Such a dark time in history.

This book brought out the historian in me and I appreciate the author putting this story out there. It served as a cautionary tale and brought back a time in history we should not ignore.

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Disclaimer: ARC via Netgalley and Open Road Media.

The best new television show for the 2015-2016 year is Underground. Shown on the WGN network, the series is about a group of slaves in the 1850s trying to escape. At times the show, as most television shows do, stretch the bounds of believability (how is one slave such a good shot despite never using a gun before, would those two people really be brothers, and how is that geography working for you?), yet the show is one that everyone should watch. It really does confront the evils of slavery head, including the white slave owner allowing the whipping of his mixed race child while the young woman’s mother looks on (this series also handles rape extremely well). Some of the criticism that show has garnered as also been on the lines of why you are bringing this up now.

Sometimes, I can’t deal with stupid (or worse) people.

The reason why I bring this up is that Open Road Media has re-issued Paula Fox’s Slave Dancer in kindle format.

Slave Dancer tells the story of a young boy, Jessie, who is shanghaied onto a slave ship. This ship transports slaves, illegally. Jessie’s job is to get the slaves to dance by playing music. This isn’t because the captain wants the slaves to be happy, but because he wants the slave to arrive looking fit or at least worth playing.

Perhaps the kidnapping aspect is a bit contrived and its use to make Jessie, who lives in New Orleans, a more sympathetic character than he otherwise, would be. Perhaps, but despite this, the story itself is still powerful. Fox does not pull her punches. Jessie’s trip is horrifying. In many ways, Fox follows in Twain’s tradition footsteps. If Huck Finn is about a boy raised in the slave holding South who learns to see a slave as a man, as a de facto father, then Fox‘s book is about a boy’s discovering of a conscious. The trip destroys as opposed to answer’s Jessie’s obsession with slavery trading, something that he was pushed away from as a child in New Orleans. His journey to objecting about slavery, something he only had curiosity about before, also seems to mirror that of Harriet Beecher Stowe.

And this is why this children’s book is important - we need to know the past and comfort it. But we need to know it in its true form (or as true as we can get). To simply say slave or enslaved doesn’t capture what happened. And this book is a work of fiction, true. But fiction, in some ways, has the power to show truth in a way that non-fiction doesn’t.

[Kyle Pratt · Rating 5 out of 5]

I teach reading to both Junior and Senior high school students so I am always looking for superior adolescent literature. The Slave Dancer, by Paula Fox, winner of the Newbery Medal for most distinguished contribution to American literature for children in 1974, is a good choice.

The novel, set in 1840, revolves around Jesse Boller, a teenage boy from New Orleans. Because Jessie enjoys playing the fife, he is kidnapped and forced to work on The Moonlight, a slave ship. His job is to play the fife while the slaves are forced to dance. I have read elsewhere that dancing the slaves supposedly kept some muscle tone during the long voyage.

We see the voyage through the eyes of young Jesse, a boy who had never thought much about slavery. Men who have compromised with evil and greed surround him and, in a way, he too has been enslaved. During the voyage, he learns about the flawed men who now control his life and the lives of the 98 slaves locked in the hold.

The novel could certainly be used in middle or high school literature, English or even history classes. It is fiction but it depicts historical events well. In my high school reading class we completed the novel in just over six weeks. The book is written for adolescent readers. Sex and violence is told of but not described in lurid detail. However, the `N' word is used to describe the slaves on multiple occasions. Because slavers, not Jesse, use the term, I feel it adds to the brutal picture of the time. A vocabulary list of nautical and archaic terms might be helpful for class reading.

This is not the kind of book you enjoy, this is the kind of book you think about. I recommend it for adolescent or young adult readers.

[Althea Ann]

This one was important to me, as a child.
Beyond presenting historical facts, I felt that it really let me understand the true horror of the slave trade.

[Linda Lipko · Rating 5 out of 5]

This 1974 Newbery Medal award winning book is by far the most compelling, graphic and intensely dark Newbery I've read. Having said this, you may wonder why I highly recommend this dark tale full of vivid, violent details.

The answer is simply this: Slavery was abhorrently wrong and this book captures the gruesomeness of the slave trade without stopping to the real temptation of pounding home a truth to the point wherein the reader closes the pages. Never exploiting the power of the evil, but honestly capturing the horror, Paula Fox did a marvelous job of addressing man's inhumanity to man. In 152 short pages the author accomplished what many writers cannot do with 500 pages of text.

In 1840 Jessie Bollier lives in New Orleans with his hardworking seamstress mother and his lovable sister. Veering off the path when returning from his Aunt's house, he is kidnapped and taken aboard a slave ship. He is a young 13 year old white male who, while aware of the dirty business of slavery, had no idea what was in store for him or the slaves.

Playing the fife during the day to earn extra money to help his mother renders him a target of the nasty traders who capture him and stow him on the ship. His job is to play for the slaves when they are allowed a bit of sunshine on deck. Providing sunshine is not done as a kind deed, rather the precious cargo is forced to dance in order to provide stronger muscle tone when they are sold at the final destination of Cuba. As Jessie witnesses the injustice, his notes become disjointed and shrill and he is beaten if he does not earn his keep.

Jessie witnesses fights, treachery and hostility between ship mates. As the ship travels to Africa and then to Cuba, the author's excellent writing, provides clear, crisp images that anchor the reader while the ship is tempest tossed and hell bent toward finishing their destination The journey becomes darker and deeper as evil resides above the deck and 98 slaves witness terror below.

When Jessie asserts that if the slaves are not treated properly there will not be more trading with the salves all gone, the response of a crew mate is simply stated as "The slaves are never gone!' All of Africa is a bottomless sack of blacks." Thus, with one sentence the author captured the incredible evil misconception that life does not matter...that it does not matter at all!!!!!

Another example of excellent writing are these paragraph:

"For some time after the sun had set, the sky remained the color of rope. The ship lay steady on the glass-lie surface of the water which was pricked, now and then, into small ripples when a seabird struck its surface."

"A few lanterns were strung up to give us light. They made a mystery of the ship -- we floated like a live ember in a great bowl of darkness."

This is anything but a light, easy-breezy YA book. It is nonetheless a part of history that cries to be told with bitter, angry tears of righteous indignation. And, if as the final page is turned, the reader does not come away with the brutality of American slavery, then there is something dramatically wrong with our society.

This is an author I'll be sure to read again.

FIVE big stars!

[Juli Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Goodness, this one was tough to get through. Really, I feel like it should be in the YA section; this is a pretty no-holds-barred account of the slave trade, complete with all the senseless violence, humiliation, cruelty, and nastiness that entails. It certainly would have been near impossible for me to get through until I was twelve or so.

Despite this, however, there's a lot of value here. For one, very few children's books go into such brutal detail about the slave trade. This book goes beyond treating slavery as an abstract matter of evil; it is impossible to ignore the very real inhumanity of the system in this book. And, on that note, it does a good job of treating slavery as systemic oppression, rather than a matter of evil people committing evil acts. Fox has a lot to say about how various parties were implicit in the system, even when they weren't directly involved in trade itself. She also does a great job of explaining the importance of power in this system, rather than just always using profit, for example, as a scapegoat to explain away cruelty.

I loved that I hated nearly every white character in this book--even the protagonist, Jessie. While he, too, is somewhat a victim in this story, Fox uses his character to show how cruelty breeds inhumanity in even "innocent" people. While I understand Fox's choice of Jessie as a protagonist here, I still would have preferred to see this written from the point of view of one of the enslaved Africans; it felt a little ridiculous, frankly, to tell this story from a white perspective.

This is definitely worth a read during American history studies, but only for middle school and older, I would say.

[Tia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I won't say this was an easy read as children's fiction, but do believe it's a necessary one. I will admit I'm baffled by the 1 star ratings on Goodreads. My rating for the book is more about detail and realistic information. I read a lot of slave narratives and found that, for a children's book, Fox did a good job. I'm glad to have read it.

eArc provided by Open Road Media via Netgalley

[Josiah · Rating 3 out of 5]

"You have no idea how much you can get used to".

―Benjamin Stout, The Slave Dancer, P. 24

One just gets a feeling about certain books. Even before reading them, it's as if one can already sense the magnitude of the story, can tell that the reading experience about to be had is so big and important that simply by encountering it firsthand, one has charted new personal territory, has plugged into a culture of great literature that extends back through human history further than we know. The Slave Dancer is such a book as this, an undisguised, unglorified, unfettered beast of a novel that lingers to prowl in the memories of generations past, present and future, a story of ordinary souls that bear the guilt of such monstrosities that it would seem the human spirit could not help but be suffocated beneath the sheer weight of it. Even the souls of those who only bear witness to the unfiltered horrors taking place before them surely could not wriggle free from the crushing weight of the ambient sin any more than the perpetrators, having seen too much to be borne by an innocent spirit. The Slave Dancer isn't fiction, really, not where it counts; all of the crimes herein committed against the collective conscience of humanity really did occur, at one time or another, just as described in these pages. For those serving as part of the crew on slave ships traveling between Africa or some European city dealing in the slave trade and their final destination of the U.S., there was no closing the pages of a book when the vile desecrations of humanity became too extreme to stomach, no leaving off and taking a breath of fresh air away from the ungodly stench of a ship's hold packed tightly with uncleaned bodies and their accumulated waste from weeks or months of confinement, no saying that they'd had enough when the drama became just a little too real and the violence heightened to levels too intolerably grotesque to process. Whether they'd boarded the slaver by choice or not, once aboard there was no respite but the one promised at the end of the long, torturous sea voyage, if they survived to that point. Those who did survive might wish, by then, that they had not.

Jessie Bollier, only thirteen years old, is one who didn't take the transcontinental sea voyage of his own volition. Working to help support his small, fatherless family, playing his fife in the town square and hoping to eventually apprentice himself to a chandler so that he might make good money, Jessie accidentally plays his music for the wrong listener one day. Shanghaied on the return route to his family's house that night, Jessie is roughly dragged aboard a sea vessel named The Moonlight, bound for parts unknown, his only immediate assurance being that the ragtag sailors who grabbed him would kill him before they'd allow him to escape back home. There will be a return to his family eventually, Jessie is promised, but not until after his skills as a fife player have been used to meet the needs of the financiers behind this particular voyage. With little idea what he's in for or why a musician might be needed so desperately on a ship, Jessie has no choice but to go along with his captors, hoping for a way of escape but resigning himself to the fact that he's almost certainly on board for the long haul.

How could Jessie ever have believed, even if he'd been expressly told, that a long journey across the Atlantic with only the slimmest food and water rations necessary to keep the crew alive would somehow be the fun part of the voyage, that feeling the twisting stomach pains of starvation and wandering in the stupefying mental fog of perpetually unsatiated thirst would be a welcome relief compared to what awaits The Moonlight once they pick up its cargo waiting in Africa? For the creaky vessel on which they have labored to cross the ocean is nothing but a slave ship, designated to cross into illegal waters and transport new batches of abducted Africans contrary to international laws that forbid the practice. This, then, is why Jessie's services with the fife were needed so badly by his kidnappers. To preserve the black flesh as usable and sellable, fit for buyers willing to drop quite a price on a strong back and sound set of limbs, keeping the future slaves in working physical order was imperative. To do so, routine vigorous physical activity would be necessary, and the best way to accomplish that in the close quarters of a ship would be through forced dancing. So Jessie, repulsed by the supplementary service to the slave trade that he is being forced to provide, plays his fife to dance the stolen Africans, wanting nothing more to do with the perverse ritual than the unwilling dancers.

As Jessie tries to get some version of a handle on his situation, figuring out who among the crew, if anyone, can be trusted, and desperately stretching each day to somehow become the next as he attempts to survive long enough to be reunited with his family, one night of walking death still awaits, greater in the intensity of its abominations than anything that he has so far witnessed. When men who have already heaped their sins up to the limit can feel the pain of no more guilt, pushing the horrors that they have inflicted to even worse atrocities becomes chillingly easy. As the pinpoint of Jessie's focus narrows to just making it through one more night alive, life and death blur into a senseless, violent mix, and there's no telling who might be left still breathing on the other side of it.

When Jessie is first kidnapped by the crew of The Moonlight, he's not exactly naive about the existence of the slave trade in the U.S. It's 1840, and though slavers are no longer supposed to be capturing Africans and shipping them to other countries for use as slaves, twenty years before the Civil War this crime is still, as incredible as it seems, being committed. Jessie knows about the buying and selling of slaves, and though he's not at all in favor of it, he doesn't begin to understand the horrors of the experience for the forcibly transported blacks until he sees it happen in person. Just as the truth about the ship he has been compelled to work aboard is slowly revealed to Jessie, so does he find out similarly what the rounding up of new sellable bodies is really all about. "The truth came slowly like a story told by people interrupting each other", Jessie observes. Aboard The Moonlight, there's a lot of truth to be revealed before one really fathoms the full horror of what it means to deal in the currency of flesh, blood, bone and sinew. That's a truth that no one ever wants to experience for themselves.

It's Jessie, in his private thoughts, who most heartbreakingly describes the innocence that has been stolen from him, the cover for the true ugliness of a brutal world stripped away by his interminable ordeal for his fledgling eyes to behold. "(T)he world I had once imagined to be so grand, so full of chance and delight, seemed no larger and no sweeter than this ship. Before my tightly closed eyelids floated the face of the child who had, after that one glance at us all, seemed to comprehend her whole fate." The entire voyage onboard The Moonlight is just such a train of progressive revelation, one that howls more maddeningly every inch of the way it barrels down the track; not just for Jessie, but for us as well, who may have known just as little as he about the tangible inhumanities of the slave trade in America before reading this book. It's a warning to all who think ourselves safe from a horror just because we box it out and refuse to think about it, chalking it up as something that, while surely horrendous, will never affect us where we live as long as we hold it at arm's length. As Jessie learns, though, when grievous human atrocities are allowed to exist anywhere without being confronted, they will eventually find us where we live, knocking on our door or waylaying us on our way home when we're least prepared for it. If we settle for injustice in any form, anywhere, then eventually we will have to pay the price, and it may be a whole lot steeper than we ever considered it could be.

I'm tempted to say that Paula Fox is a great writer of historical fiction, and while that's obviously true, I think it's too narrow of praise for an author who has shown such ability to write adeptly in any style and for every genre. It might be better to say that Paula Fox is as great an author of historical fiction as she is of every other type of literature she has created, from family drama to mysteries to multicultural novels and beyond. The powerful final notes of The Slave Dancer will send chills down the spine of any reader, providing a haunting close to what is one of the more sobering, eye-opening Newbery Medal winners that I have read. The Slave Dancer is a book that we need to read, reread and talk about for as long as prejudice of any kind exists in the world, for as long there are still those out there with enough disregard for the basic humanity of others to steal them from their homes, pack them onto a ship and sell them as slaves if the opportunity to do so still existed. As unbelievable as it seems, there are still those who wouldn't think it wrong to do exactly that if they could, and that is why we all need this book to remind us what's at stake when we forget what that is, as we tend to do. I would give The Slave Dancer three and a half stars, and I hope that I always keep it close in my thoughts.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

A powerful historical fiction book...maybe a little too intense for younger readers, but highly educational and masterfully written. The Newbery is well-deserved. I don't think many elementary-aged students would be able to grasp fully the complexity of the characters and their relationships in this novel--Fox explores the dark depths of human nature and human psychology--but I'm so glad she didn't give us a watered-down version of this period in American history.

[Phil J · Rating 4 out of 5]

An abducted ship's boy endures a harrowing and brutal voyage on a slave ship during the infamous Middle Passage. The characters are subtly drawn and complexly ambiguous. The morality, legality, and business aspects of slaving are explained. I loved the intelligence and pacing of this novel.

The question is: Who would put this book in their classroom? It's so horrific and realistic that anyone younger than a 7th grader would get nightmares from it. Furthermore, it's the most recent Newbery I can think of that uses the N-bomb. Unlike The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle, I thought that this book used it appropriately. Paula Faox uses the dialogue of the characters to show the level of humanity or inhumanity in their attitude toward the slaves, and this slur is a clear signpost in the moral maze of the novel. I would recommend this book as an independent reading book on the middle school level, but not really as a read-aloud. It would be too painful to read out loud to a group of students.

My only complaint is that the last 20-30 pages seemed a little contrived. After spending most of the book showing that the slaves were irrevocably separated from the whites, Paula Fox lets her narrator redefine the relationship a little too easily. It's as if she (or her editor) made a last-minute decision to soften the bleakness of the novel. I would have preferred an ending with a more realistic, unsettling feel, because that would have matched the rest of the book.

[Derek · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved Fox’s approach to describing the horrors of the slave trade to young adults. Few of the worst parts of the Middle Passage are ignored. Fox is a wonderful writer and seems to created a modern tale for young adults that Defoe, Melville, Twain, Stowe, and Stevenson would have appreciated. I particularly loved the way the narrator only slowly comes to realize the full humanity of the Africans he encountered. I also loved the conclusion, which firmly links to the slave trade to the Civil War and makes a comparison to Andersonville in particular. And finally, I loved the way the story hinges on the broad complicity of White America in the slave trade, for even a poor young boy, and a mere musician to boot, is asked to play an important role in the slave selling enterprise. And indeed, the book ends when even music is turned inside out and made to seem like a pure manifestation of evil.

[Lilly Fountain · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was really weird but the end turned out all right

[Emily · Rating 1 out of 5]

Jesse Bollier is a thirteen-year-old boy living in New Orleans in 1840 when slave traders hear him playing his fife on the wharf. They kidnap Jesse and take him on their ship The Moonlight, where he is to play his fife for exercise periods for the slaves so that they will be in good physical condition when they reach the U.S. and can be sold at auction. Jesse is horrified at the treatment of the slaves and the behaviors of the ship’s crew. He is especially aware of a young boy about his own age who was captured. I have to admit that overall, I didn’t really enjoy this book. I found it to be overly graphic, disgusting, and violent in the description of the captain’s treatment of his crew, the nausea felt by all on board, and the chamber pots used in the slave quarters, among other things. I was expecting the description of the treatment of the slaves to be harsh and graphic, but it was the other stuff that I thought was particularly excessive. I also thought the relationship between Jesse and the other boy to be under-developed, especially considering the weight that is put on that relationship toward the end of the book. This book won the 1974 Newbery Medal.

[Aimee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I get the feeling from this book, even though I haven't read anything else by Fox, that she is one of those children's authors that actually treats children like they have brains. Like they're in need of real, hard stories and not just entertainment. This book was rough and filled with hard topics, but it was not too difficult for older kids to read. I love to find books that encourage questions from kids and spur conversations, those books that turn kids into lifetime readers and learners. It's entirely refreshing in a library full of easy reads and low level comedy for children, to stumble across the books that take life seriously and face hard things head on, but still manage beauty (the only author I have truly felt this about recently has been Jason Reynolds).

I really appreciated the way that Fox showed the true depravity of the slaver mentality, the greedy focus that rotted them from the inside out (and the rotten society that created them) and the way that Jessie is faced so abruptly with the reality of what has happened to him and what is happening to the Africans that are forced into the journey. Jessie's mental state is so well written, the struggle with learning to live on the boat, to somehow manage a life among the men who stole him, and to do what he needs to do to survive, but at the same time, so overwhelmed with the trade of human beings that at times his feelings are so conflicting he can't even handle it himself.

The levels of awful that Fox illustrates, the treatment of slaves, the violence of slavers towards even each other, the practice of shanghaiing are so heavy and terrible, and she writes so beautifully that you can't help but finish the story. It takes skill to write a book so haunting and beautiful about one of the worst atrocities in human history.

[Grace · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a really good book. It was so sad but also very informative.

[Elisabeth Ensor · Rating 4 out of 5]

A powerful story told from a young boy’s perspective on slavery. After being kidnapped and forced to work aboard a slave ship, young Jessie witnesses the harsh realities of the illegal slave trade between Africa and the Americas. Forced to play his flute to keep the enslaved people moving and their muscles from weakening, he experiences firsthand the greed and brutality of the slavers. This was a difficult but important read—I wouldn’t recommend it for children under twelve. The ending was fantastic!

[Handan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Plot
Jessie Bollier lives in New Orleans with his mother and sickly sister in 1840 and earns pennies playing his pipe on the docks to amuse sailors. While walking home one evening, he is ambushed and kidnapped, taken through the swamplands and aboard a ship, The Moonlight. Aboard ship he learns the vessel is bound for the coast of Africa then to Cuba; The Moonlight is a slave ship. For the first half of his journey, Jessie adjusts to living as a captive working as the lowest member of the crew. However, he discovers his purpose when the slaves are brought aboard--He is to play his pipe to make them dance and maintain muscle during the arduous journey to Cuba. His is a quick and sickening understanding of the ways of the world. When the ship wrecks in the Gulf of Mexico, Jessie and the sole survivor, a captive named Ras, are free, but far from safe.

My Thoughts
WHERE WAS THIS BOOK WHEN WE LEARNED US HISTORY?!
Okay, now that's out of my system, seriously. Where was this book when we studied Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn. Its based on historical events, to boot! I hold nothing against those literary lads, but their presentation of slavery pales in comparison to understanding how sickening our history is. I want every student to read this and have the hard discussions about who we were, how little we valued the men and women God made in his own image, how slavery perverted those who worked its loathsome system (just look at the rest of the crew). I wanted to cry in outrage, I wanted to scream (but this was bedside reading, so I couldn't/didn't). I wish I could more fully articulate why this will never be my favorite book but why I will ask everyone to read it. It isn't the height of writing or prowess; it tells a story we as a nation want to forget or ignore.

[Janelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This won the Newbery Medal in 1974 and is by far the heaviest novel I've read in my still-in-progress exploration of 1970s Newbery winners.

The protagonist is Jessie, a white boy who is kidnapped from his home in 1840s New Orleans to be part of the crew on a slave ship. He is taken because he can play the fife, and someone is needed to provide music for the slaves to dance to during their journey (to keep up their health and reduce the appalling death rate). It takes Jessie a while to realize the full extent of his situation and the ship's purpose.

The book is only 176 pages long, but it took me quite a while to get through it. The writing doesn't flow particularly quickly. I don't fault the writer for that; indeed, it may have been a strategy to keep readers from glossing over the horror of the storyline too quickly. But the plot IS horrific and it was unpleasant to read for long. Also, I found the crew members difficult to distinguish among - I kept getting the bad guys mixed up!

I am curious as to what age group the author thought this book was aimed. I talked through the story with my 7th grader (because there is NO WAY he'll read this on his own) and he had to work to keep from covering his ears. I know many children have difficulty with this book, and I can see why. Perhaps it is best used in a high school classroom if assigned in a literature class.

As I mentioned above, I'm not done with the 1970s winners. So far, most of the books contain pretty heavy themes that seem designed to instruct. I found myself thinking "isn't the most recent Newbery winner about a squirrel who gets sucked up by a vacuum cleaner and then obtains superpowers? was there no whimsy in the 70s?"

[Annette · Rating 2 out of 5]

This has got to be the most depressing book I have ever read. I had to slog through an incredible amount of graphic violence and senseless brutality before the main character encountered even a scrap of kindness. The author doesn't candy coat life on a slave ship in the least. She doesn't spare her readers any details of what life was like for the crew or the slaves. I don't know why this book won the Newbery, it isn't even appropriate for children. I could see how maybe a high school history teacher could use this book in the classroom, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone younger than 14.

This book is really hard to rate because on the one hand I'm really frustrated because the book portrays the absolute worst of humanity, without contrasting it with a portrayal of the best of humanity. On the other hand, I do want to give the author credit where credit is due. She does have a good command of the English language. However, this can actually be viewed as detrimental, if it wasn't so well written it wouldn't have such a negative affect on people. I just wish that she had used her talent to write something more up lifting.

I have read a lot of books (children's especially) where racial tention is the main theme and usually I enjoy them. But I have a hard time reading a book that is so completely focused on the negative. I felt the same way about the book Sounder. Can't you let the characters have one happy moment? Please?

If you would like to read a book that portrays racial tension that isn't so sad and depressing I recommend Roll of Thunder Hear my Cry by, Mildred D. Taylor. Ms. Taylor is an absolute genius.

[Jill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fox, Paula; Keith, Eros; The Slave Dancer, Bradbury Press,1973, historical fiction, 5th - 8th, rate: 4.5, lexile 970L

The story is set in 1840. The main character, Jessie, is about 13 years old and can play the fife. One day he is kidnapped and it taken aboard a slave ship. His role is to play the fife for the slaves they capture so the slaves will stay in “shape” and look decent to sell. Jessie witnesses what the slaves have to endure and the horrible conditions they are forced to live in.

I rate this a 4.5. I didn’t give it a 5 because as a elementary child, or even a 6th grader, this book doesn’t seem appropriate. As an adult, I think it was a good book that brought me back to 1840 and I witnessed as reading what the slaves had to go through and how they were treated, but as a child there was a lot of graphic details that a young audience shouldn’t read about. I believe it’s important that children are exposed to the cruelties that existed with the slave trade and what it was like on ship for both the crew and the slaves, but I advise a parent reads the book first and see if it’s appropriate for their child. The author did an outstanding job throughout the whole book using details to make you feel you were actually on that ship; I could feel the pain that the characters went through as though the torture was happening to me.

[DaNae · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is brutal. As someone who freely gives books about hard things to students who seem to hunger for stories that tell of dark times, I don't know if I could hand this to a child. The inhumanity is almost too hard to fathom. That, the brutality shown in the book was not manufactured but based on facts and history just sits like lead in my heart. The writing is Newbery worthy, but is the content? Of course it is, as fifteen people believed it to be back in the day. I just feel so wounded by reading it, but again, it is not about me or my tender feelings. I very much appreciated the forward by Christopher Paul Curtis in the edition I read. I know it was widely panned after winning the Newbery and don't think it will be any better received today in 2018.

In the words of Jessie's mother, “I can’t hear it! I can’t bear it!”

[☯Emily Ginder · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a YA book about the slave trade. It is a heavy subject and, as I suspected, has been placed on banned lists for 5th - 8th grade readers. It was challenged in a Kentucky middle school when a parent found the depiction of the slave trade to be too graphic. Believe me, it could have been much more graphic. However, it was a relentless horror since Jessie is kidnapped in the first chapter. I would have difficulty having any of my children read it in 5th or 6th grade.

Despite that, the book was a pretty accurate depiction of the slave trade and how much cruelty the slaves encountered on their journey to the Americas. The book ends with Jessie returning home, but forever affected by the trauma he experienced on his first and last sea voyage.

[Jack. S · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recently I read the book The Slave Dancer by Paula Fox. I think that this book was very good in it's own way. In social studies we learned about slaves 2 chapters ago and I think it's interesting that this described what they went through perfectly. Although I don't recommend it's cussing (the n word) over and over and it's gruesomeness. I found it interesting because I never imagined the pain someone can go through by the hands of another person. They also tell you something you (or just me) never thought, the crew can also die because when the slaves need food the crew goes without (because the crew isn't able to be sold for profit).

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Listening to the audio in the car...krb 7/7/17

Heart wrenching audio that is a must read/listen to for all teenagers. You really feel the emotions and circumstances of these people in the story....krb 7/17/17

[Darla · Rating 4 out of 5]

More mature topic, but a tale that should be told! This one flows along following the life of Jesse Boller a young boy of 13 who is kidnapped to play his fife on a slave ship.

[Falina · Rating 3 out of 5]

A ruthless little book with a very likable main character.

[Linda Russo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent, but pretty dark from start to finish.