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Title (in bold), Author
ISBN 13, Price
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Core Audience:
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Review:

Reviewer and store, Rating (on right hand margin)

Flesh and Blood Sample

Chains, by Laurie Halse Anderson
978-1416905851, $16.99
Simon & Schuster
October 2008
Core Audience: Ages 9-13, probably more girls than boys
Notable Aspects: Historical setting, American Revolution, slavery, characters, plot, humor,believable ambiguity, afflictions of war

REVIEW: Isabel, a slave girl from Rhode Island who was to have been freed, finds herselfand her retarded little sister sold into a Tory household in New York City just before theBritish drive out Washington and his troops, occupy the city, and eventually lose it again.Isabel’s character and her considerations about whom to help on what terms, are presentedin lively style, with the wry humor of one whose choices are limited. She makes abundantlyclear the travails of slavery, the continental army’s suffering, and how near a thing wasWashington’s eventual victory. Though well written, I would have wished it could bedirected to a little younger audience, because there is too little fiction to support the studyof the American Revolution, a subject usually introduced around ages 7-10. This is a bookchildren will enjoy reading and enjoying as a class assignment, but probably not one they’llpass from hand to hand with whispered excitement.

Reviewer: Carol B. Chittenden, Eight Cousins                                                 Rating: 7.5