Chains

Grades 6-8.  Laurie Halse Anderson tells a different sort of coming-of-age story with her novel Chains (Athenium, 2008).

 Anderson follows Isabel, a young slave born with a kind and liberal master in Rhode Island but sold to cruel New York Loyalists at the height of America's War of Independence.  Through Isabel, Anderson explores the ambiguity of "freedom" on both sides of the war; she encounters Patriots who cry for freedom but are not willing to treat slaves as anything other than property, and Loyalists willing to free slaves, but only for the sake of harming the Patriot's cause.  Anderson's historical fiction is meticulously researched, she includes quotes from primary documents thematically as the header of each chapter and has a well cited list of historical questions in her final author's note.  History teachers will appreciate the possibility to use this book as a teaching tool both in content and in method.  Anderson offers a unique slave tale far away from the normal Civil War story and paints a complicated and rich story of American ideology that should raise stimulating questions in advanced readers minds. Highly Recommended, *****