| Description |
138 pages ; 18 cm |
|
age Children |
|
age Children |
| Note |
"Laurel-leaf books." |
|
"Laurel-leaf Newbery"--Cover. |
| Summary |
Kidnapped by the crew of an Africa-bound ship, a thirteen-year-old boy discovers to his horror that he is on a slaver and his job is to play music for the exercise periods of the human cargo. This moving production of the Newbery Award-winning children's classic tells the story of Jessie, a young boy snatched off the docks in New Orleans and thrown aboard a slave ship in a suspenseful and horrifying depiction of survival. A young fifer is kidnapped and forced to play his instrument to exercise slaves on a slave ship. Fourteen-year-old Jessie is kidnapped and press-ganged aboard an American slave ship bound for Africa. Jessie Bollier often played his fife to earn a few pennies down by the New Orleans docks. One afternoon a sailor asked him to pipe a tune, and that evening Jessie was kidnapped and dumped aboard The Moonlight, a slave ship, where a hateful duty awaited him. He was to play music so the slaves could "dance" to keep their muscles strong, their bodies profitable. Jessie was sickened by the thought of taking part in the business of trading rum and tobacco for blacks and then selling the ones who survived the frightful sea voyage from Africa. But to the men of the ship a "slave dancer" was necessary to ensure their share of the profit. They did not heed the horrors that every day grew more vivid, more inescapable to Jessie. Yet , even after four months of fear, calculated torture, and hazardous sailing with a degraded crew, Jessie was to face a final horror that would stay with him for the rest of his life. |
| Subject |
Slave trade -- Juvenile fiction.
|
|
Slave trade. |
| Genre/Form |
Fiction.
|
|
Fiction.
|
| ISBN |
0440961327 paperback $5.50 |
|
9780440961321 paperback |
|
