Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson
This award-winning children's book is set from mid 1776 through to January 1777, and is told from the point of view of Isabel a black girl. She and her sister Ruth were owned by a woman, Mary, who had promised to free them on her death, but due to upheavals from the War of Independence, Mary's lawyer is away, and her heir quickly takes the girls and sells them to a loyalist couple, the Lockton's, from Charleston who are heading to their house in New York.
Ruth is a bit simple, but a quiet and good girl, and Isabel is very protective of her. In New York, Isabel meets Curzon a young slave whose master Bellingham is in charge at the docks and suspects that they are loyalists, and will keep an eye on them.
When Curzon asks Isabel to spy for them, she is at first wary, but pins her hopes on promises of freedom. Isabel is a smart girl, who can read and write, and knows how to keep her thoughts to herself, except in the case of her young sister.
As we watch the changes in New York through her eyes as the war progresses, we see the bigger picture as well, and learn about the dealings of both the Americans who fight for freedom and the loyalists that want to remain king's subjects. Isabel struggles to understand the meaning of freedom to these men who use the word with such fervor, but still have slaves.
As she continuously looks for ways to win her and Ruth's freedom, she finds herself torn between new loyalties and old. She undergoes cruelty and hardship as well as small kindnesses from a few. This is a tale that brings history to life as well as opening the young reader to human experiences foreign to them. It is the first book in a series.
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