Revolutionary Histories
RSSJudy Freeman, Curriculum Connections -- School Library Journal, 02/03/2009
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Listen to Laurie Halse Anderson introduce and read from her novel Chains
Our students live in the here and now; anything before the invention of the iPod is ancient history to them. Recently I read a New York Times article reporting on a study about dreams. It found that people over the age of 55 dream in black in white about a quarter of the time, while people 25 and younger almost never do. That’s because the young’uns have never really watched black-and-white TV or old movies! Vietnam is the Stone Age to them. How then do we bring history alive in their color-saturated lives? Try these new children’s books, brilliant read-aloud selections all, to immerse listeners in the drama and dangers of history, especially the Revolutionary War tableau of 1776.
Alternately engrossing, thrilling, and heartrending, Laurie Halse Anderson's Chains (S & S, 2008; Gr. 5 Up) was one of the five nominees for the prestigious National Book Award in 2008 in the Young People’s Literature category. As 13-year-old orphan Isabel Gardener tells it, she and her 5-year-old sister Ruth were to have been freed after their owner, Miss Mary Finch, died in May 1776. It was in her will. But Miss Mary’s only living relative refuses to acknowledge Isabel’s claim, and sells the two girls to Mr. Lockton, a Loyalist from New York City, and his quick-tempered wife. Isabel’s astute and compelling narrative immerses readers in the day-to-day chores and personal indignities she endures as a lowly house servant, intertwined with the politics of New York City under siege, occupied first by the Continental army, and then by the British.
Befriended by Curzon, a slave boy her age, Isabel agrees to his suggestion that she become a spy for the Patriots’ cause, hoping it will lead to her freedom. When she overhears Mr. Lockton discussing a plot against General George Washington, she seeks out Colonel Regan, an officer in the Patriot army headquarters, only to learn a bitter truth: that the rules of “propriety and civilization” do not extend to slaves. When Isabel is branded on her face with the letter “I” for insolence, your shocked listeners will cry at the unfairness and cruelty of it.
In her extensive appendix, Anderson states, “ . . . you can't look at this through good guy/bad guy glasses.” Who was on the side of the slaves? No one. Each chapter begins with an actual quote from 1776 by the likes of Thomas Paine, Phillis Wheatley, John and Abigail Adams, and Benjamin Franklin, in addition to excerpts from letters and newspapers of the day. On their own, these make fascinating reading and will lead to discussions and some primary source investigations about the lives and times of Americans fighting for their independence.
Pair your reading of Chains with Jacqueline Woodson’s Newbery Honor winner, Show Way (Putnam, 2005; Gr. 1 Up), a stunning picture book, illustrated by Hudson Talbott, that traces generations of the women in the author's family, from slavery to today.
Another natural companion is Laurie Halse Anderson’s own feisty nonfiction picture book about a school play hijacked by little-sung heroines, Independent Dames: What You Never Knew about the Women and Girls of the American Revolution (S & S, 2008). Illustrator Matt Faulkner’s buoyant crosshatched pen and ink and watercolor illustrations are filled with dialogue balloons, period costumes, and portrayals of more than three dozen indefatigable females. Students can do some digging online and in books to find out more about each. There’s Sybil Ludington and her 40-mile ride on horseback to warn of a British attack; Phillis Wheatley, the African slave renowned as a poet; and Elizabeth Burgin, who helped 200 American prisoners of war escape a prison ship, leading them across the ice of the frozen New York Harbor.
Readers of Chains will be gladdened to discover that Anderson promises a sequel, Forge, which will take Curzon on to Valley Forge. Find out what Curzon can expect to encounter there with Russell Freedman’s Washington at Valley Forge (Holiday House, 2008; Gr. 4 Up). We've come to take for granted the exemplary nonfiction from Newbery Medal winner Freedman, but he thrills us anew with an eloquent and gripping account of the calamitous winter George Washington and his bedraggled army spent at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.
Students who claim history is dull will pay full attention to the descriptions of the conditions the Continental army faced when they arrived, 11,000 strong, to "this wooded wilderness,” as one officer called it. While the British army was comfortably ensconced in the American capital of Philadelphia, they were unaware that the Continentals, camped 20 miles away, had no clothing to speak of, no bedding, no food, and no money. At first, the soldiers slept in makeshift tents in the snow and freezing temperatures. Washington was reluctant to complain, since the British would realize their advantage. In Congress, some politicians, supported by a group of army officers, tried to undermine him and remove him from command. And yet, Washington prevailed.
Quotes from a wide range of primary sources, culled from books, diaries, and letters make the story more immediate, and readers will stop to examine and admire the ample, well-chosen, handsome sepia-toned and full-color engravings, paintings, photographs, and maps. You get a portrait of Washington that is so fully fleshed, it leaves you breathless. Have students discuss what kind of leader Washington was at Valley Forge, citing some of the many examples from the text, and how his image compares with what they have read about him as our first president. Why was he so beloved? How did the Continentals come to win the war against the British? And what difference has that made in our lives today?
Judy Freeman (www.JudyReadsBooks.com) is the author of Reader's Theater with Children in Grades PreK-6 (Libraries Unlimited, 2007). Her latest project is writing all the children’s book reviews and content for author James Patterson’s new Web site for parents.
Listen to Laurie Halse Anderson introduce and read from her novel Chains
