Cy in Chains

October 14, 2013
In 1890s Georgia, slavery has ended in theory but not in reality. When 13-year-old Cy Williams attempts to save his abusive, alcoholic plantation master’s runaway son, Travis, and the boy drowns, Cy is blamed. Without a trial, he’s sentenced indefinitely to work on a chain gang: “He’d messed in the white man’s business, and just as his father had warned, he was in bad trouble now—the worst trouble of his life.” For more than three years, Cy endures unlivable conditions and constant cruelty. His anger grows and hope dwindles each day his father doesn’t come to his rescue. While some of the men support one another, Cy isolates himself and hangs onto his guilt over Travis’s death; he has to regain confidence in his strength and others after he sets his mind on an escape. Full of emotionally charged depictions of brutality, physical abuse, and prejudice, Dudley’s (Caleb’s Wars) third historical novel is a tough and painful read. Dudley’s use of dialect helps immerse readers in the injustice of Cy’s story, as he risks everything in the name of freedom. Ages 14–up.

October 15, 2013
A black teen finds himself sold to a brutal chain gang in post-Reconstruction Georgia. The period following Reconstruction in the American South was particularly difficult for blacks, many of whom worked on plantations as sharecroppers. Cy Williams and his father, Pete, work for John Strong as he tries to eke out a living on a once-thriving plantation. Cy's mother has abandoned the family, forever changing Pete. The one friendship Cy has is with Travis, Strong's young son, who fears his often drunken father. After an enraged Strong abuses the horse beloved by the boys, Travis flees with the animal, and Cy tries to retrieve them--a venture that ends with Travis dead and Cy in peonage, a system by which blacks were sold to work camps or chain gangs for minor infractions or no charges at all. Cy's life changes from tough to nightmarish as he is linked to other men and boys with little hope of release. This is a story of relentless brutality, with the prisoners enduring almost every possible indignity. There are too few instances of story tension to lift the narrative, with the result that it often feels flat despite the horrors described. Characters are primarily victims and villains, and the use of derogatory racial language is used often to make that point. A tough, important read, though many readers will need prior background knowledge to fully understand it. (Historical fiction. 14 & up)

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December 1, 2013

Gr 9 Up-The plight of a group of African American boys in rural Georgia in the late 1800s is brought vividly to life in this novel about 13-year-old Cy Williams. Cy grows up working on a plantation with his father, but his friendship with the plantation owner's son results in Cy being kidnapped and turned over to a brutal chain-gang manager. Based on true stories, Dudley's novel paints a horrifying picture of the conditions under which chain-gang prisoners lived and worked. Cy spends long days breaking rocks, cutting saw palmetto, and shoveling clay until evening when "He and nineteen other boys were chained side by side on one long platform." Cy becomes friends with several of his bunkmates, including Jess, whose belief in God helps him to persevere, and young Mouse and Billy, who look to Cy for hope and direction. He also befriends the camp's cook, Rosalee, who has her own reasons for wanting to escape. Life in the chain gang is relentlessly oppressive, violent, and heartbreaking. Cy's transformation from innocence to anger and, finally, with the support of his friends, to a leader willing to take risks is compelling. His dream of freedom and reconciliation with his father drives the novel, but his path to happiness is painful and the light is hard to see.-Shelley Sommer, Inly School, Scituate, MA

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