The Slave Dancer

The Slave Dancer is a story about a young 13 year old boy, Jessie, who lives in New Orleans during the slave trade era. Jessie is kidnapped and brought to a slave ship heading to Africa. His job is to play music for the slaves so that they will dance. This measure was taken to help them slow the process of muscle deterioration while in severely cramped quarters on board.

The Slave Dancer is one of those books that definitely brings truth to the phrase, "Don't judge a book by it's cover." I originally purchased this book for a young adult literature class and never read it. The reason I was reluctant was because it has a young, jovial boy playing the fife on the cover. I thought, "How can this realistically illustrate the horrors of the slave trade?" Reading the novel proved that there can be a delicate balance between historical horror and young adult literature.

The story tactifully included many details about sailing on a slave boat. There were well developed sailing characters, that captured the life of a working class sailor. It discussed the moral dilemmas they had with their job and justified why they made their decisions to work on the ship. It also captured the relationships that American and European countries had with slavery and the fight to abolish it. In fact, the most horrific ending had to do with their willingness to do anything in order to save their own freedom from punishment of illegally participating in slave catpure.

I would recommend this book to both adults and young adults who are interested in learning the details of the slave trade. It does not hold back, and tactifully causes tears instead of screams.