The Pirate's Son - Hardcover

McCaughrean, Geraldine

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0590203444 ISBN 13: 9780590203449

Publisher: Scholastic, 1998

Synopsis

Left orphaned and penniless in England in 1717, young Nathan Gull and his sister Maud are offered sanctuary in Madagascar by the son of a pirate, Tamo White, a young man with enemies who force the two to become pirates themselves.

About this title

From School Library Journal

Grade 7 Up-Sent to England in the early 1700s by his dying pirate father for a proper education, Tamo White decides to return a few years later to his Madagascar birthplace. He invites two new friends, Nathan and Maud Gull, who have just lost their own father, to join him onboard his guardian's ship. When they reach Madagascar, Captain Sheller turns out to be a villainous trader and tries to sell Maud to a band of cutthroats. The three barely escape and settle in a small village. When King Samson, a pirate, arrives to take over the community, accompanied by Tamo's Malagasy mother, now Samson's wife, the boys pose as buccaneers in a show of strength. The lifestyle appalls Nathan, but Tamo, feeling betrayed by his mother, seems to embrace the life his father led. A rousing climax involves the return of Captain Sheller and an exciting ship chase. Maud and Nathan seem to lack depth at first, but as events progress readers see more of the girl's hidden adventurous spirit and her brother's surprising courage. Tamo shifts personas several times, from school boy to Malagasy to pirate captain to doctor. Even though events spur these changes, they sometimes seem too extreme. The conclusion is satisfying and convincing. Descriptions of characters, customs, and settings stall the action initially, but the novel develops into a vivid picture of a time and place new to most youngsters. -Steven Engelfried, West Linn Public Library, OR
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Gr. 7^-10. This terrific story, a full-blooded yarn full of pirate lore, exotic locales, and plenty of terror and heroics, begins as a deceptively simple tale of a boy and his sister. Fourteen-year-old Nathan is thrown out of Graylake School in 1717 England because his father had the temerity to die without paying his fees. Having read and dreamed and studied pirates, Nathan is exultant when schoolmate Tamo White, son of a pirate and a Madagascar queen, takes Nathan and his little sister, Maud, onto a pirate ship that belongs to one of Tamo's guardians. They sail to Madagascar, where they escape slavery and worse under the guardian's heavy hand. Tamo is haunted by his mixed ancestry and his ties to both lands; Nathan suffers deep culture shock when he tries to reconcile his pinched English upbringing with a life that includes dancing with the bones of the ancestors. It is Maud, however, who blooms as fully as a tropical flower. Without losing any of her prim, girlish charm, she bonds with local animals, begins to learn the language, exorcises Tamo's demons, and becomes a hero, perhaps a sorceress, to the local people. The clashing of wildly disparate cultures and what it means to be a grown-up in a place where all the rules are different are viewed through a prism of cyclones, slaver raids, pirate booty, lost ships, blood, gore, and mystery. A finely paced, marvelously crafted read; young people will miss meals and homework over this one. GraceAnne A. DeCandido

About this edition

• Publisher: Scholastic
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0590203444
• ISBN 13: 9780590203449
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 224