LitPick Review
The Pox Party is about a young African boy named Octavian, who is the subject of a philosophical experiment being done at the Novanglian College of Lucidity in Boston, Massachusetts during the American Revolution. The college's president, Mr. Gitney, wants to see whether Africans have as great a learning capacity as Europeans are thought to have (at the time). Octavian is given an education "fit for a white man," and he becomes fluent in Latin and Greek and is excellent in literature and arithmetic. His success enrages Mr. Sharpe who takes over the college. He turns Octavian into a servant. As a slave, Octavian is involved in a pox party (guests are infected with small pox and suffer together for a month, making merriment. His mother dies from the disease because of the party. Octavian is stricken with sadness, escapes and joins the Continental Army, for which he fights many battles and endures many hardships.
Opinion:
I like The Pox Party because some parts are written in letter form, telling of Octavian's life in the army from another soldier's point of view. It also has diary entries describing Octavian's life under his master's control. The plot is constructed nicely and has much adventure and emotion. I give it only eight stars because it has a lot of long words that I don't understand. Because of this, I struggled through the book in the beginning. Toward the end, the vocabulary was easier for me to understand. Anyone who has a wider range of vocabulary would love this book. The book's overall tone is sad. Octavian seems like a body with no soul or spirit -- he is never cheerful and almost never talks. I also learned some surprising things about the American Revolution from this book. The general age that I would recommend The Pox Party to is 11 and up (6th grade and up).
