Set during the middle of the nineteenth century, when the illegal slave trade was at its height, The Slave Dancer not only tells a vivid and shocking story of adventure and survival but depicts the brutality of slavery with unflinching historical accuracy. But it’s one final horror, when the Moonlight nears her destination, that will change Jessie forever. The Slave Dancer ABOUT THIS BOOK It is 1840, and 13-year-old Jessie Bollier plays his fife on the docks of New Orleans to earn pennies for his mother. Over the course of the long voyage, Jessie grows more and more sickened by the greed of the sailors and the cruelty with which the slaves are treated. Jessie’s job is to provide music for the slaves to dance to on the ship’s deck-not for amusement but for exercise, as a way to keep their muscles strong and their bodies profitable.

Similar to them, he is punished, eats loathsome food, and is confined to the compacted ship. While embarking on the long voyage, he realizes how similar is lifestyle is to the slave’s. There, the Moonlight picks up ninety-eight black prisoners, and the men, women, and children, chained hand and foot, are methodically crammed into the ship’s hold. In the book The Slave Dancer by Paula Fox, a thirteen-year-old boy, Jessie is captured and taken on a slave ship. When he wakes up, Jessie finds himself aboard a slave ship, bound for Africa. One night, on his way home, a canvas is thrown over his head and he’s knocked unconscious. Paula Fox’s children’s book The Slave Dancer was published in 1973 and is an historical novel that won the Newbery Medal.

Thirteen-year-old Jessie Bollier earns a few pennies playing his fife on the docks of New Orleans. In this iconic, wrenching Newbery Medal winning book, a young Louisiana boy faces the horrors of slavery when he is kidnapped and forced to work on a slave ship.

The slave dancer book