The Slave Dancer - 1974

The Slave Dancer by Paula Fox
Illustrations by Eros Keith


Pages: 176
First Published: 1973
Rating: 3/5

First Sentence:

In a hinged wooden box upon the top of which was carved a winged fish, my mother kept the tools of her trade.

Comments: Thirteen-year-old Jessie Bollier is kidnapped by sailors and taken to work upon their ship. Jessie learns that the ship is a slaver and is going to Africa to pick up slaves to take back to Cuba. Jessie's purpose on the ship is to be the 'slave dancer', he will play his flute, while the slaves are made to dance so as to keep their muscles fit. This was an okay book. The first half of the book is an intriguing look at life at sea and the characters are interesting. The second half of the book deals with the slave trade and the horrors of such are not sugar-coated and it is a compelling read. However, the writing just didn't grab me all the much. The characters lacked vitality. It was interesting but not one that will leave a lasting impression. Also, I must say I was not impressed with the illustrations at all. They are full of shadows, lack details and very vague. Ultimately, a good, but not great, book.

The Slave Dancer by Paula Fox

Stars: *****

When I found out it was Historical fiction I was nervous as this isn’t a genre I usually read. However I needn’t have worried. One of the few histories I do read about is African history. This story is based on what happened June 3, 1840. A slave ship called The Moonlight shipwrecked in the Gulf of Mexico. Of the 13 crew and 98 slaves, only 2 survived.

Paula Fox did a superb job of telling the story. I don’t know if the survivors told their story and she based it on that or if nothing is known except what’s stated in the paragraph above and she made everything up. Either way it was a heart wrenching story that both pulled me in and pushed me away. I couldn’t stop reading it even when what happened was so appalling I felt ashamed to be human and Caucasian.

The Slave Dancer most definitely deserved to win the Newbery medal. I don’t know what other books were in the running that year but no matter how good they were, this one would have still beaten them up. We need to remember what was done to the Africans to help ensure nothing like that happens again.

The Slave Dancer

Jessie Bollier is kidnapped, taken from his mother and sister, and left stranded aboard a slave ship, on its way to Africa to acquire a boatload of slave cargo. He has been taken in order to play the fife on the ship, to play the fife for the slaves, to entice them to dance, to keep the slaves fit while incarcerated on the ship.

This was a grueling tale to read. Jessie is in misery. His fellow members of the crew are in misery. The slaves are in misery. There can be no happy stories in this book and there can be no happy endings. But, along the way, Jessie meets a few people who show tiny sparks of humanity and give him hope.

The Slave Dancer

The Slave Dancer, by Paula Fox, won the Newbery in 1974. When I looked at some of its reviews on Amazon (fairly evenly divided between those that thought it was important and evocative, and those that thought it was overly depressing or boring), I noticed that they recommended it for ages 9-12.

I would not recommend this book for a child under 12 (although that may be The Slave Dancer's "reading level"), because the story is really quite brutal. It is not overly graphic, but it is emotionally very difficult - Fox does all too good of a job portraying casual cruelty amongst the sailors before the slaves are even purchased and loaded into the ship. After that, it's horror piled upon horror.

The Slave Dancer is basically a story about one boy's loss of innocence - the year is 1840, and 13 year old Jessie Bollier of New Orleans is kidnapped to serve as a fife player on a slave ship called The Moonlight, which sails to West Africa to pick up slaves, then to Cuba to trade the slaves for molasses, and then back to the United States. The black and white illustrations by Eros Keith suit the story very well (part of one is shown on the cover here, which I think is much more appropriate than some of the newer covers, which portray a totally misleading happy nautical scene).

From the first page, with its list of The Moonlight's officers, crew, and cargo ("98 slaves whose true names were remembered only by their families, except for the young boy, Ras"), and the note "Shipwrecked in the Gulf of Mexico, June 3, 1840: Survivors 2", I think it is obvious that this isn't going to be a happy adventure. Strangely enough, the story isn't overly intense, either (thus the many critics who said it was boring) - but I think her detached style actually adds a bit to the horror described. I think Fox's ending is pretty realistic, and it packs quite the emotional punch, but I don't want to give any more of it away than that - except to say that while it is not exactly a happy ending, it certainly isn't as depressing as what preceded it. It's a good ending, worth finishing the book to reach.

I can't say that I will ever number The Slave Dancer among my favorite Newbery winners, but I do think it is an important book. It was interesting reading this right after The Matchlock Gun, with its casual mention of slaves and man's inhumanity to man. A lot certainly changed in the years from 1942 to 1974.

Slave Dancer

I had such high hopes for this book. I chose it because I really enjoyed Paula Fox's story "Maurice's Room" about a boy who collects odd things in his room and drives his parents crazy. But I'm in turns bored and uncomfortable with Slave Dancer.

So far, this is about a boy who is kidnapped from nineteenth-century New Orleans and brought aboard a ship that trades in enslaved Africans. It's taken about half the book to get to the African coast, but I can't say that anything has happened yet. I'm not going to finish the book, but in light of the outcry over just one word in the Newberry's latest winner, the book still might be worth discussing because of some of its language.

I was glad to read that Sandy D. had a chance to talk with her son about racism while reading Holes. What do others think about books that use racist terms? It seems very remote when they appear in winners from the 1920s, but the 1970s doesn't feel that long ago. Does it matter which characters use the terms?

Regardless, there are enough books I have enjoyed that afford the opportunity to discuss racism that I don't think I'll be reading Slave Dancer any time soon. I am now reading Gay Neck: The Story of a Pigeon. I've been reading a lot of Mo Willems with my son, so it's a logical book for me to read next.