The Slave Dancer By: Tyler Torgensen The Slave Dancer was a very interesting book. It tries to capture the feeling of what slavery was like back in th...more The Slave Dancer By: Tyler Torgensen The Slave Dancer was a very interesting book. It tries to capture the feeling of what slavery was like back in the 1800's and it did it so good that it earned a Newberry Medal Award for it. The writer and publishing company of this book took a risk by publishing a book about slavery because it could be banned from certain countries or it could start controversial stuff because slavery is a touchy subject to talk about. The good news is that this book was mostly praised and is a recognized book in both of the kids and adults genres. It is a very depressing story but it tells you how it was back then and how cruel humans can be to other humans.
"When (he) passed a black man, (he) often turned to look at him, trying to see in his walk, the man he had once been”. The book is about a 13 year old boy named Jessie Bollier who lives with his widowed mom and his sister, and when Jessie has to go get a dress from his aunt he is kidnapped and taken to a ship. He wakes up and notices that it is a slave ship and he can play the flute so they want him to play the fife for when the slaves get their “exercise”. The British will board the ship they have called the “Moonlight” and take all their goods and all their slaves. I think the authors theme was to do what’s right and to think what YOU want to think and no one to help you.
The book is good because of the thought and detail the author puts into the book, like how he plays the fife to make the slaves “exercise” less boring. She also did good on the setting of the novel because of how it’s on a slave ship and most of the crew doesn’t really care for them. The book would be better if she made it a little bit longer because I had just started to really get into it and then it just suddenly ended. I think she wrote it to educate us on how bad it would be to be a crew member, a slave, or even someone who takes care of the ship because of the smell of the slaves dead bodies. The audience needs to know that you kind of have to put yourself in Jessie’s shoes to actually understand what he is seeing and hearing.
This book isn’t similar at all to my last book White Fang but there are many differences. Some of the differences are that the main character isn’t a wolf, it’s a human, but that probably isn't the biggest one. It also doesn’t take place in the jungle, it takes place on a ship. White Fang was more of an ambitious character and Jessie doesn’t have a choice to be on that ship so he definitely is not as ambitious. It’s also in different time periods, White Fang is in the late 1900’s and The Slave Dancer is in the mid 1800’s.
I would for sure recommend this book to people who like shorter stories. The book has a great sense of detail and gets very interesting in the end. The book definitely deserves a Newberry Medal for educating people about slavery and how cruel it was. It also teaches people to be grateful because what if this happened to you in real life? I would give this book a 8 on a 1-10 scale because of all the things a mentioned and 2 points off for not being long enough. (less)
White fang is a emotional story about never giving up. It begins with a pack of wolves who kill some sledders named Bill and Henry. The pac...more White Fang
White fang is a emotional story about never giving up. It begins with a pack of wolves who kill some sledders named Bill and Henry. The pack then breaks up and the she wolf, Kiche and her mate One Eye go off together. They end up having cubs together born near the McKenzie River. White fang was the only cub to survive out of the five cubs. White fang was part wolf and part dog. His father One Eye is later killed by a Lynx leaving White Fang and his mother together where they eventually end up at an Indian camp. Later on he leaves only to be cruelly mistreated by humans and was made to fight with other dogs where he was actually very good but at one point he almost died. With the tough upbringing he had he didn't understand love nor affection until later on in life when he was taken in by kind and patient man and eventually White Fang learned to love and to trust.
This book was good as it told the story about the relationship between man and animal but at the beginning it was a bit confusing and hard to follow. This book would be better if it followed an exact timeline from beginning to end. The key is to really pay attention when reading this.
I believe the author, Jack London, wrote this to show the us the many variations and emotions of life, in how it can be cruel and yet later on can be beautiful. It shows that we humans can improve our world by helping out animals and not killing them in senseless acts or being cruel to them and breaking their spirits. I think it also shows us to never give up. What may be bad can eventually turn out to be good. I highly recommend you read this book especially if you love animals but make sure you pay attention to the story line.(less)
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