Introduction About Chains And Graceling

By Author: ANN BRAKE
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When Miss Mary Finch of Tew, Rhode Island, passes away in May 1776, it is a sad but joyous event for Isabel and Ruth, who are young sisters owned as slaves by the unusual Miss Finch. She not only taught Isabel to read and write but also freed the girls upon her death. However, Miss Finch's brother, Robert, shares none of his sister's mindset and as the inheritor of her property sells the sisters to the Lockton family in New York.

Thirteen-year-old Isabel had promised her late mother she would always take care of her younger sister Ruth, who, in the vernacular of the day, is simple and suffers from epilepsy, a disease badly misunderstood in Cartier Replica Watches the 18th century. Ruth is the constant target of abuse because she lacks the guile to hide her thoughts and feelings and to present the happy, obedient fagade that slave owners expect. In the Lockton family the two girls experience physical and psychological mistreatment beyond anything they could have imagined in Miss Finch's household. Isabel realizes that they must somehow gain the ...
... freedom they were promised or suffer horrible consequences, including separation or even death.

The Locktons are Tories, supporters of British rule, and along with other powerful and wealthy families, they attempt to subvert the rebellion of the American colonists. When Isabel is recruited by another enslaved teen named Curzon to be a spy for the Americans, she is seemingly promised the freedom she and Ruth are due. Ironically, it is the denial of personhood that the Locktons enforce on Isabel as a slave that makes her a successful spy. When a conspiracy to assassinate George Washington is planned in the Lockton home, Isabel brings the names and details to the Colonial Army. When Master Lock-ton's actions are revealed, he escapes the city by subterfuge, leaving his harpy of a wife to fend for herself. One of the first things she does is to sell the disabled Ruth, probably to be sent to the West Indies. Isabel confronts her and Madam Lockton demands that Isabel be imprisoned and branded with an "I" for Insolence. In spite of Isabel's service as a spy, the American soldiers do nothing to help her.

Fantasy enthusiasts have reasons to cheer this book: Cashore's work tells us that a promising fantasy writer has entered the scene. Graceling is not just new; its premise is fresh and vital and holds promise for all books in the forthcoming series.

Gracelings are people "graced" with special skills. They can be identified by their two quite differently colored eyes (Katsa, the protagonist, has one blue eye, one green). When she is eight, Katsa discovers her special skill: she is strong enough to kill with her bare hands. Once her skill is discovered, Katsa is used by her tyrannical uncle, King Randa, to dispose of adversaries. Katsa reacts by forming a council and providing justice for anyone unfairly accused by one of the seven kings of the kingdom. In Katsa's attempt to rectify one more bit of Randa's nastiness that opens the book, she rescues elderly Prince Te-liff, and that leads to her meeting his grandson, Prince Po (whose eyes are silver and gold). Po has incredible strength but not nearly the power that Katsa has, and that becomes a problem for her.

Katsa is virtually the prototype of a gifted adolescent girl. She has power but she sometimes abuses it. She is decent and good but sometimes headstrong and capricious. She knows that others fear and distrust her, and Cartier Replica that has led her to distrust and fear others. Her relationship with Po begins with her awareness that he holds a power over her that no one else ever had. And that ambiguous relationship means that Katsa and Po form a friendship that gradually heats into love.

Graceling is a powerful book of adventure and mystery about growing up and deciding who and what you are. But it may occur to readers, as it did to me, that Katsa has a hang-up or dread of marriage. It happens, but since fear of marriage is so basic to her life, it's puzzling that no explanation is ever provided. No bad marriage is presented that had frightened her—nothing at all to explain why she has this phobia.

Cashore is a gifted writer, and Katsa is an intriguing character. There's much in Graceling, especially in the minor characters and in the Katsa-Po love that can be expanded. Riches await us with Cashore's next book. (KLD)