Who Wants to Be a Pirate?: What It Was Really Like in the Golden Age of Piracy

by Bridget Heos, Daniel Duncan (Illustrator)

Overview

Have you ever wanted to be a pirate? To sail the high seas in search of adventure—and maybe some buried treasure?

Well, writer Bridget Heos and illustrator Daniel Duncan welcome you aboard Captain Parrot's pirate ship! Captain Parrot is here to tell you about the life of a real swashbuckler from the Golden Age of Piracy (1650-1730).

From danger to the doldrums, Who Wants to Be a Pirate? has all the need-to-know facts. And don't worry about walking the plank—strap in for fun and join Captain Parrot's pirate crew!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250765918
Publisher:	Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
Publication date:	11/26/2019
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	32
File size:	23 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Bridget Heos is the beloved author of more than a hundred children's books, including Who Wants to Be a Princess?; Mustache Baby; Mustache Baby Meets His Match; I, Fly; and Stegothesaurus. She lives in Kansas City, Missouri.

Daniel Duncan is a highly-praised illustrator and the creator of the picture book South. He lives near London.

Bridget Heos is the prolific author of Stegothesaurus; Mustache Baby; Mustache Baby Meets His Match; I, Fly; and more than one hundred other children’s books. She lives in Kansas.

Editorial Reviews

2019-08-26
Avast! There's more to a real pirate's life than plunder and parties.

As in Who Wants To Be A Princess? (2017, illustrated by Migy), Heos contrasts romance with reality—but not in any particularly perceptive, or even accurate, way. Addressing readers whose idea of "pirate" starts and ends with the likes of Capt. Hook or Jack Sparrow, the equally fictional Capt. Parrot (a white human with a diverse crew) does present pirate food as wormy in good times and boiled boots in bad, and gives redolent new meaning to the term "poop deck" thanks to the livestock on board. But aside from drinking punch and having food fights, he barely alludes to actual piratical behavior or history. Duncan is no better, as he shows a cartoon crew firing anachronistic breech-loading cannons and then contradicting the narrative claim that victims are thrown overboard by providing them a boat and supplies. He also depicts a carpenter "surgeon" flourishing but not using a faintly discolored saw, leaves the captured captain being bundled aboard a paddy wagon rather than hanged, and offers a final view of an apparently uninhabited pirate ship sailing along. An afterword on the Golden Age of Piracy, capped by a bibliography, at least points to piracy's less savory side.

Anemic fare for would-be buccaneers. (Picture book. 6-8)

Kirkus Reviews