Octavian Nothing: A Serious Book Review

I just read a book that has a really long name, weighs a ton, and started out a little slow.  Maybe it's not the book you grab on your way to the beach.  Fortunately, we are way past beach season.  The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation: Volume 1, The Pox Party by MT Anderson (phew, I told you it was long!) is the kind of book you read when you need a REAL book.  A book with issues.  A book that makes you think.  A book you can impress your friends, family & teachers with, if that's what you're into.  Plus--it's really, really good.  At least I think so.

I know what you're thinking:  What could be so great about such an old-fashioned looking book?  At the beginning of the book, Octavian Nothing is just as confused about his life as you might be.  He has been raised by the members of the Novanglian College of Lucidity.  Mainly by Mr. 03-01.  Yes, they are odd, even for the year 1760.  Octavian learns, over the course of the book, that these people raising him do not see him for the prince of Africa his mother has taught him to be.  They see him as a slave. It is, after all, the 18th century.

Here's the problem: Octavian is a slave who speaks Latin and Greek.  He reads and plays beautiful music.  Octavian lives in a time when slaves were expected to be stupid, ignorant and basically inhuman.  At heart, Octavian is an oddity, and a dangerous one at that.  What kind of life can he lead? 

Even though the subject matter is not exactly uplifting, this is a book you can re-read.  Actually, it's been very hard for me to write this review because every time I turn the pages of The Pox Party, I want to curl up in a corner and read it all over again.  Octavian is a hard guy to get to know.  But I think he's worth the effort.  And if you really like him, you can read more in Volume 2: The Kingdom of the Waves.

Posted by Alexa Hamilton, Librarian