The Giant Rat of Sumatra, or Pirates Galore

Be the first to write a review

All Available Formats + Editions

$0.01

——

Hardcover

$0.01

——

The Giant Rat of Sumatra, or Pirates Galore (Library Binding) Pub. Date: 2/1/2005 Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

$0.01

——

The Giant Rat of Sumatra, or Pirates Galore Pub. Date: 2/1/2005 Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

Want to read this on your NOOK? Request as NOOK Book from the publisher

Thank you for requesting this book as a NOOK book from the publisher.

Customers Who Bought This Also Bought

Advertising

Overview

A swashbuckling pirate ship cuts through the early morning fog. Crouching like a tiger about to spring, her figurehead is a huge and ferocious rat with crooked teeth and gouged-out eyes.

When the daring Giant Rat of Sumatra drops anchor in San Diego, twelve-year-old cabin boy Shipwreck only wants to begin his long journey home to Boston. Instead he encounters:

snarling mutineers barefoot bandits hairbreadth escapes duels cunning barkeeps simmering revenge secret identities scrappy orphans betrayals lost loves old enemies new villains heroic last stands

and razzle-dazzle treasure so well hidden that only someone as quick and clever as Shipwreck could keep up with it.

Plucked from the sea by the most notorious pirate in the Pacific, Shipwreck discovers his adventure is only beginning.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

A 12-year-old is fished from the sea by a bandit at the helm of The Giant Rat of Sumatra. "Plenty of intrigue, acts of revenge and droll dialogue will keep kids bountifully entertained," PW said. Ages 10-up. (Sept.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780060742393
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date: 2/1/2005
Format: Library Binding
Pages: 208
Age range: 9 - 12 Years
Lexile: 750L (what's this?)
Product dimensions: 5.50 (w) x 8.25 (h) x 0.77 (d)

Meet the Author

Sid Fleischman wrote more than sixty books for children, adults, and magicians. Among his many awards was the Newbery Medal for his novel The Whipping Boy. The author described his wasted youth as a magician and newspaperman in his autobiography The Abracadabra Kid. His other titles include The Entertainer and the Dybbuk, a novel, and three biographies, Sir Charlie: Chaplin, The Funniest Man in the World; The Trouble Begins at 8: A Life of Mark Twain in the Wild, Wild West; and Escape! The Story of The Great Houdini.

Read an Excerpt

The Giant Rat of Sumatra

or Pirates Galore

By Sid Fleischman

HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

Copyright © 2006 Sid Fleischman
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0060742402

Chapter One

My story begins on the night an owl blundered into the belfry and rang the church bells. The town awoke with a sense of doom. It was an omen. Something evil was in the air.

Through drifts of fog, an exhausted sailing ship came creaking into the harbor. After a long voyage, it was down to its last puff of wind and its last cask of fresh water.

Under its needle nose of a bowsprit clung a dreadful figurehead -- a giant rat. The creature, painted mustard yellow, had been carved out of a mahogany log felled in the jungles of Sumatra. The rat, big as a tiger, had once glared at the world through bold and cunning emerald eyes. But the gems had been pried out by thieves, leaving the giant rat to wander the seas like a blind man. The ivory teeth had yellowed, but remained bared and sharp as crooked nails -- a rat eager to sink its jaws into the throat of the unwary.

The ship had come halfway across the world to this sleepy bay on the Mexican coast of California. What was she doing in San Diego? The Giant Rat of Sumatra was a pirate ship, a bold outlaw accustomed to plying her trade from Sumatra to the China Sea.

Standing calmly at the ship's rail, I sniffed the air for some dry scent ofthe earth out there in the dark. It seemed an eternity since I had set foot on land. I'd already had enough of the sea to last me until my voice finally changed. I was twelve years and ten months old and the ship's cabin boy.

I turned to catch sight of the ship's master as he came sliding down the ratlines. The man took a leap like a tall, big-boned acrobat to the bowsprit. There he peered through the rags of fog and shouted orders in midair. "Steersman! An inch to starboard, if you'll be so kind! This channel is tight as a priest's collar! Aye, that's better, shipmates! Steady!"

He was a large man, but I had noticed how light on his feet he was. Drenched by hours bareheaded in the fog, his coarse black hair glistened like needles. He was as apt to be lending a hand pumping water in the bilge as at his sextant fixing the course. He regarded no job aboard ship as beneath him.

It was clear to me that the ship's master was no stranger to this strange port of call. He knew that a vast bed of seaweed lay near the entrance: He skirted it. He appeared as familiar with the bottom of the bay as with the deep creases in his own hands, weathered under foreign suns.

"God bless my eyesight!" he exclaimed with immense pleasure. The captain had a loud, hearty laugh when he felt like laughing, as he did now. "We've brought our pigs to a fine market, sahibs!" It was a Hindi term of respect he was fond of tossing about the decks. "That's San Diego itself hidin' in the fog dead ahead and about to welcome Captain Gallows back. Aye, I've come home after all these years!" He made a sharp chopping motion with his hand. "Drop the hook!"

With a rattling of its rusty chain, the anchor dropped and found the bottom. The ship swung around like a dog pulled tight on its leash.

As I watched him, I could tell that it amused Captain Gallows to sail under such a foreboding name. He flung out orders in a grab bag of languages while he strode toward his quarters. "Jimmy Pukapuka, be so kind as to fetch up a bucket of whale oil and refill the warning lights. In the fog, we shall want to glow like a ghost, amigo!"

"Aye, Cap'n."

"Calcutta, open our last keg of water. And run up our flag!"

"What flag, Cap'n?" replied the second officer, as broadly muscled as a bull.

"Anything but the skull and crossbones. Mr. Ginger! Post a man on watch! Everyone else turn in. Sleep well, shipmates, for tomorrow you will become gentlemen! Cabin boy! We do have a cabin boy, don't we? I recall fishing one out of the sea months ago. Where is that shipwrecked cabin boy?" "Here, sir."

"Polish my English boots! I don't intend going ashore tomorrow looking like a beggar."

The deck had almost cleared when I sat myself against a deckhouse to polish the boots. Jimmy Pukapuka, a burly Pacific Islander with swirling tattoos on his cheeks, had carried up a full bucket of whale oil. He was soon finished refilling the port and starboard lanterns, with oil left over in the bucket.

"Catch a wink, Shipwreck, boy," he remarked, hanging up the oil bucket and vanishing belowdecks to his bunk.

It was almost inevitable that the crewmen would call me Shipwreck. I had, after all, been dredged up out of the sea. Boston born, I had been taken aboard a smelly whaling ship by my stepfather, an angry man and a harsh ship's officer. He told me that eleven years was quite old enough to earn my own keep. And a sea voyage would toughen me up for a short-tempered world.

After more'n a year and a half, a short-tempered storm off the Philippines had blown the ship into matchsticks. I had found myself clinging like a barnacle to a splintered oak beam. At the other end, cursing to the skies, hung the one-armed chief mate.

The two of us were plucked from the sea by a fast, nimble ship with the figurehead of a great carved rat. Spouting seawater and sputtering, I remember looking around for my stepfather.

"There is no one alive left floating in this storm," the ship's young captain had told me and briskly turned away as one accustomed to death at sea. I recall raising myself to an elbow, as if to check the raging storm for my relative, and then I fell back, exhausted.

Continues...

Excerpted from The Giant Rat of Sumatra by Sid Fleischman Copyright © 2006 by Sid Fleischman. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Customer Reviews

Be the first to write a review

( 0 )

Rating Distribution

5 Star

(0)

4 Star

(0)

3 Star

(0)

2 Star

(0)

1 Star

(0)

Your Rating:

Review Guidelines

Tell the world what you think of this product.

Add Recommendations

Your Name: Create a Pen Name or Leave Anonymously

Barnes & Noble.com Review Rules

Our reader reviews allow you to share your comments on titles you liked, or didn't, with others. By submitting an online review, you are representing to Barnes & Noble.com that all information contained in your review is original and accurate in all respects, and that the submission of such content by you and the posting of such content by Barnes & Noble.com does not and will not violate the rights of any third party. Please follow the rules below to help ensure that your review can be posted.

Reviews by Our Customers Under the Age of 13

We highly value and respect everyone's opinion concerning the titles we offer. However, we cannot allow persons under the age of 13 to have accounts at BN.com or to post customer reviews. Please see our Terms of Use for more details.

What to exclude from your review:

Please do not write about reviews, commentary, or information posted on the product page. If you see any errors in the information on the product page, please send us an email.

Reviews should not contain any of the following:

- HTML tags, profanity, obscenities, vulgarities, or comments that defame anyone
- Time-sensitive information such as tour dates, signings, lectures, etc.
- Single-word reviews. Other people will read your review to discover why you liked or didn't like the title. Be descriptive.
- Comments focusing on the author or that may ruin the ending for others
- Phone numbers, addresses, URLs
- Pricing and availability information or alternative ordering information
- Advertisements or commercial solicitation

Reminder:

- By submitting a review, you grant to Barnes & Noble.com and its sublicensees the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable right and license to use the review in accordance with the Barnes & Noble.com Terms of Use.
- Barnes & Noble.com reserves the right not to post any review -- particularly those that do not follow the terms and conditions of these Rules. Barnes & Noble.com also reserves the right to remove any review at any time without notice.
- See Terms of Use for other conditions and disclaimers.

If you find inappropriate content, please report it to Barnes & Noble

The Giant Rat of Sumatra, or Pirates Galore

Overview

All Available Formats + Editions

Customers Who Bought This Also Bought

More About This Book

Overview

Related Subjects

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

Product Details

Meet the Author

Read an Excerpt

The Giant Rat of Sumatra

HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Rating Distribution

5 Star

4 Star

3 Star

2 Star

1 Star

Your Rating:

Your Recommendations:

Barnes & Noble.com Review Rules

Reviews by Our Customers Under the Age of 13

What to exclude from your review:

Reviews should not contain any of the following:

Reminder:

Recommend other products that relate to your review. Just search for them below and share!