Readers will find riches in a sequel that offers life lessons along with historical detail.
A 21st-century boy finds himself aboard a pirate ship in 1813 in Rougraff’s second children’s novel in a series.
Ten-year-old Tommy found a pirate’s gold coin during his family’s spring break trip to south Florida last year, and he’s thrilled to return to the area on vacation this year. He still has the coin, despite a local fisherman’s warnings about a curse, and during a deep-sea fishing contest, the boy is pulled underwater. When he surfaces, he finds himself in the early 1800s, face to face with Capt. José Gasparilla, who wants his prized gold doubloon back. After seeing Gasparilla’s Spanish galleon for himself, along with swordfights, cannon fire, and men tossed overboard, Tommy realizes that these pirates are no fantasy. The boy goes on to have a series of extraordinary experiences, as he and Gasparilla free enslaved people on a ship, outrun wild boars, and meet Jean Lafitte and other historical figures. Will the youth ever return to the 21st century, or does his fate lie centuries ago on the sea? Rougraff expertly braids Tommy’s modern perspective with real-life events of the past to construct a thrilling coming-of-age story. It deconstructs the traditional pirate tale while taking a deep dive into history, addressing enslavement, Native American cultures, and international war, giving this children’s novel a tone unlike other, similar tales. At times, the diarylike writing style loses focus by spelling out Tommy’s thoughts at length, which disrupts the flow. However, the strong character development works to provide a realistic portrait of pirate life and relationships. Rougraff heightens the peril when Tommy gets a very serious injury but also makes the notorious Gasparilla a sympathetic character.
Readers will find riches in a sequel that offers life lessons along with historical detail.Pub Date: March 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-73-569738-3
Page Count: 216
Publisher: SDP Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the...
At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever.
Protected Winnie, the ten-year-old heroine, is not immortal, but when she comes upon young Jesse Tuck drinking from a secret spring in her parents' woods, she finds herself involved with a family who, having innocently drunk the same water some 87 years earlier, haven't aged a moment since. Though the mood is delicate, there is no lack of action, with the Tucks (previously suspected of witchcraft) now pursued for kidnapping Winnie; Mae Tuck, the middle aged mother, striking and killing a stranger who is onto their secret and would sell the water; and Winnie taking Mae's place in prison so that the Tucks can get away before she is hanged from the neck until....? Though Babbitt makes the family a sad one, most of their reasons for discontent are circumstantial and there isn't a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned from their fate or Winnie's decision not to share it.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1975
ISBN: 0312369816
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1975
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Entrancing and uplifting.
A small dog, the elderly woman who owns him, and a homeless girl come together to create a tale of serendipity.
Piper, almost 12, her parents, and her younger brother are at the bottom of a long slide toward homelessness. Finally in a family shelter, Piper finds that her newfound safety gives her the opportunity to reach out to someone who needs help even more. Jewel, mentally ill, lives in the park with her dog, Baby. Unwilling to leave her pet, and forbidden to enter the shelter with him, she struggles with the winter weather. Ree, also homeless and with a large dog, helps when she can, but after Jewel gets sick and is hospitalized, Baby’s taken to the animal shelter, and Ree can’t manage the complex issues alone. It’s Piper, using her best investigative skills, who figures out Jewel’s backstory. Still, she needs all the help of the shelter Firefly Girls troop that she joins to achieve her accomplishment: to raise enough money to provide Jewel and Baby with a secure, hopeful future and, maybe, with their kindness, to inspire a happier story for Ree. Told in the authentic alternating voices of loving child and loyal dog, this tale could easily slump into a syrupy melodrama, but Pyron lets her well-drawn characters earn their believable happy ending, step by challenging step, by reaching out and working together. Piper, her family, and Jewel present white; Pyron uses hair and naming convention, respectively, to cue Ree as black and Piper’s friend Gabriela as Latinx.
Entrancing and uplifting. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-283922-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2019
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