I've just read a couple of new maritime/pirate novels - well, new to me, but since I got them for half-price at a
Whitcoulls sale, I guess they've been around a while.
First up was
Secrets of the Fearless, by NZ-born Elizabeth Laird. It's not a pirate book but it is a swashbuckler that rips along at a fearful and thrilling pace from the very first line: "It was a wild night, raw, with rain in the air". Laird has a deft way with dialogue and action, as well as historical detail (besides a couple of little glitches).
Our young hero John Barr falls into the navy almost by accident, and the novel traces his early years on board
HMS Fearless, his best friend Kit (who has secrets of his own, which you'll work out well before John does) and cloak-and-dagger espionage along the coast of France during the wars between Britain and the Republic.
Like Hornblower and the Jack Aubrey books (
Master and Commander) - and indeed many maritime adventures - the incidents are inspired by the life of the greatest spy/swashbuckler of them all, Lord Cochrane. It's a ripping yarn, but does slow down into a kissing book towards the end, which might disappoint some boys who read it.
On the other hand, girls might have thought it was not for them - as is, for example, Celia Rees's
Pirates, which combines swashbuckling and romance.
Peter Raven Under Fire suffers from the same complaint, although
Secrets of the Fearless is by far the better book.
I read it in one sitting and didn't want it to stop. It's for readers 10 to 14.
The Ring of the Slave Prince is another thing altogether. Written by Bjarne Reuter and translated by Tiina Nunnally, it's part swashbuckler, part South American magical realism, part rites-of-passage story. Some of those elements work, some don't, and they don't necessarily mesh well together. I found it at once compelling but also overlong and overcomplicated. But perhaps that's just me. I felt the same way about Brian Jacques'
Castaways of the Flying Dutchman but most other people loved it.
There are also a few disconcerting grammatical or editorial mistakes (on one page someone was the eldest son, on the next, his older brother died) and some of the strangeness in the dialogue must be due to the translation. It's probably a book for readers over 14 or so, as it gets rather gruesome and macabre at times.
Finally, a picture book:
Pirate Girl, by Cornelia Funke, author of
Inkspell and
Dragon Rider, with illustrations by Kerstin Meyer. This is quite new (not half-price yet!) and really fun - a readaloud picture book for younger kids, with a cast of suitably 'orrible pirates, a brave little girl called Molly, and Molly's fearsome Mum: Barbarous Bertha. I've read this out loud twice every day in the library holiday program last week, and can bear witness to the fact that kids even up to about 7 or 8 thought it was a pretty good read.
Oh and don't forget the new non-fiction
Pirates book by John Matthews, which is gorgeously produced and crammed with facts and snippets about pirates, corsairs, buccaneers, and the whole scurvy crew.
