McCaughrean (The Bronze Cauldron, p. 661, etc.) swashes buckles with the best in this rousing tale of two British orphans stranded among Madagascar pirates with a pirate captain’s troubled son. When his father dies destitute and he is expelled from school, Nathan, 14, has no idea how he’s going to care for himself or his younger sister, Maud. They find themselves aboard the Tenderness, a Madagascar-bound merchantman owned by the deceptively avuncular Captain Noah Sheller, guardian to Nathan’s schoolmate and benefactor Tamo White, son of a famed, dead pirate. Upon arrival, after adroitly avoiding Sheller’s attempt to sell Maud to the leering pirates at Tamatave, the three settle in a small village 50 miles down the coast; Nathan, Tamo, and Maud are not quite far enough away, however, to escape either Sheller or the dissolute pirate known as King Samson. The writing lacks only Technicolor, bringing both the exotic locale and its equally exotic pillagers to riotous life, while the plot tumbles along in a rush of deceptions, narrow squeaks, and spectacular disasters. The young characters grow and change considerably, especially Maud, who repeatedly confounds her brother’s limited expectations and is actually the cleverest, most mature, and adaptable of the three. The entire yarn is larger than life, and readers will be enthralled from the first line. (Fiction. 12-15)
