Reader Response to Pirates! by Celia Rees
the back cover reads:
"Thrown together by chance, ambitious for adventure by nature, Minerva Sharpe and Nancy Kington defy the expectations of everyone around them and take to the high seas on the pirate ship Deliverance."
My Rxn:
This is an excellent book. I would recommend it for grades 8 and up. Fans of Pirates of the Caribbean will really love this book... especially the ladies. It's a superb bildungsroman novel. It is a bit graphic at points... but it's awesome. The characters are complex and well developed. Rees leaves ties up some loose ends but leaves us hanging with the protagonist at the end... which kind of disappointed me... but I'm left with a feeling of hope. Some interesting twists and turns... some are foreseeable, some aren't. There were also some actual female pirates mentioned. They were Mary Reed and Anne Bonny. I want to research these ladies because of this book. I love it when books do that. Word Nerd Seal of Approval for this one.
She has some stellar vocabulary words and interesting phrases:
"It was as if I had crossed some kind of line, some invisible divide between girl and womanhood" (78).
"You smelt him? He can kill a snake with just one breath" (123).
"I, in contrast, ate very little, and drank only water. The Brazilian's sister was equally abstemious" (124).
"If I put on the bonnet and cloak of a doctor's daughter, life would lose its savour, like meat without salt. Life would become insipid, like some floury English pudding, not sweet and sharp to the mouth like the fruits of the south" (328).
the back cover reads:
"Thrown together by chance, ambitious for adventure by nature, Minerva Sharpe and Nancy Kington defy the expectations of everyone around them and take to the high seas on the pirate ship Deliverance."
My Rxn:
This is an excellent book. I would recommend it for grades 8 and up. Fans of Pirates of the Caribbean will really love this book... especially the ladies. It's a superb bildungsroman novel. It is a bit graphic at points... but it's awesome. The characters are complex and well developed. Rees leaves ties up some loose ends but leaves us hanging with the protagonist at the end... which kind of disappointed me... but I'm left with a feeling of hope. Some interesting twists and turns... some are foreseeable, some aren't. There were also some actual female pirates mentioned. They were Mary Reed and Anne Bonny. I want to research these ladies because of this book. I love it when books do that. Word Nerd Seal of Approval for this one.
She has some stellar vocabulary words and interesting phrases:
"It was as if I had crossed some kind of line, some invisible divide between girl and womanhood" (78).
"You smelt him? He can kill a snake with just one breath" (123).
"I, in contrast, ate very little, and drank only water. The Brazilian's sister was equally abstemious" (124).
"If I put on the bonnet and cloak of a doctor's daughter, life would lose its savour, like meat without salt. Life would become insipid, like some floury English pudding, not sweet and sharp to the mouth like the fruits of the south" (328).
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