Sunday, April 7, 2013

Module Ten...The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume I: The Pox Party




The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing:  Traitor to the Nation by M. T. Anderson.

Anderson, M.T.  (2006).  The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing:  Traitor to the Nation, Volume I: The Pox Party.  Cambridge, Mass.:  Candlewick Press.
Synopsis:  
This book is about Octavian the son of Cassiopeia, an African Princess.  His is brought up as a prince and lived in colonial Boston with a house full of scientists who are doing tests to explain the differences between the African race and the white race.  He and his mother are nothing more than test guinea pigs.    Octavian is very smart and well education.  Pretty soon he realizes that his education comes at a high price:  slavery.  What can Octavian and his mother do when they are seen as nothing more than property.

Reaction:
This book is a piece of historical fiction that is very accurate in regards to portraying slavery exactly as it is.  It is a harsh look at the life of a slave.  It is excellent written but very sad.  Even though it is a young-adult fiction book it was hard to get through at places.  

Reviews:
The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing Traitor to the Nation: Volume 1: The Pox Party. (2007). Publishers Weekly254(15), 57.  Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts with Full Text, EBSCOhost (accessed March 31, 2013).
 
James's crisp annunciation and measured intonation is well-suited to tile 18th-century language and phrasing Anderson employs in his fascinating, provocative Revolutionary War--era novel, winner of the 2006 National Book Award for Young People's Literature and also a 2007 Printz Honor Book. As young Octavian's story slowly (sometimes too slowly) unfolds, the boy learns that he is a slave and that the scientists and philosophers with whom he and his mother (an African princess who was kidnapped by slave traders) live are studying them as part of an experiment to determine whether Africans are "a separate and distinct species." The ill-advised Pox Party of the title, during which the philosophers inoculate their guests against the scourge of smallpox, marks a dramatic turning point that sends Octavian's lifejourney in a new direction. There's no question the premise is intriguing and the examination of issues noble. However, the meaty subject matter and Anderson's numerous stylistic devices (e.g. the use of different points of view and letters in dialect from another character) render this a challenging listen even for a sophisticated audience. Ages 14-up. (Jan.)

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation (Volume I: The Pox Party)
M.T. ANDERSON. Candlewick.   Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts with Full Text, EBSCOhost (accessed March 31, 2013).
Anderson (Whales on Stilts) once again shows the breadth of his talents with this stunningly well-researched novel (the first of two planned) centering on 16-year-old Octavian. The author does not reveal the boy's identity right away, so by the time readers learn that he is the son of an African princess, living a life of relative privilege and intense scrutiny among a group of rational philosophers in pre--Revolutionary War Boston, they can accept his achievements--extraordinary for any teen, but especially for an African-American living at that time. These men teach him the violin, Latin and Greek. Anderson also reveals their strange quirks: the men go by numbers rather than names, and they weigh the food Octavian ingests, as well as his excrement. "It is ever the lot of children to accept their circumstances as universal, and their particularities as general," Octavian states by way of explanation. One day, at age eight, when he ventures into an off-limits room,Octavian learns he is the subject of his teachers' "zoological" study of Africans. Shortly thereafter, the philosophers' key benefactor drops out and new sponsors, led by Mr. Sharpe, follow a different agenda: they want to use Octavian to prove the inferiority of the African race. Mr. Sharpe also instigates the "Pox Party" of the title, during which the guests are inoculated with the smallpox virus, with disastrous results. Here the story, which had been told largely through Octavian's first-person narrative, advances through the letters of a Patriot volunteer, sending news to his sister of battle preparations against the British and about the talented African musician who's joined their company. As in Feed, Anderson pays careful attention to language, but teens may not find this work, written in 18th-century prose, quite as accessible. The construction of Octavian's story is also complex, but the message is straight forward, as Anderson clearly delineates the hypocrisy of the Patriots, who chafe at their own subjugation by British overlords but overlook the enslavement of people like Octavian. Ages 14-up. (Oct.)

Library Use:
This book is strictly a historical fiction book and should be used in an exhibit under this title.  It could be used as a Black History Month.

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