Some would much rather be a pirate for a day. “Hallowe’en is quickly approaching and, trust me on this, not every girl wants to be a princess.A rousing read-aloud.” - School Library Journal But it is for those who crave high adventure, death-defying acts, and an unflinching glimpse into history. This is not for the faint of heart-no good pirate story is-as pirates are not a God-fearing lot. The depth of the art is reminiscent of great classic illustrators working in oil, especially N.C. Faces glow as they did in his work for Rafe Martin’s Rough-Face Girl (Putnam, 1992). … Shannon’s acrylics are rich, dark, and realistic, and expand upon the story. ”Yolen writes a most unusual ballad of pirate adventure that sings the history of Anne Bonney and Mary Reade, the only 2 women of the 12 pirates aboard the Vanity.The strong, memorable verse also continues the tradition of pirate mystique, although very small children will miss the irony of the two female renegades “pleading their bellies.” - Children’s Literature Wyeth illustrate this poem of the capture and freeing of the famous women pirates Anne Bonney and Mary Reade. “Exquisitely dramatic, and sometimes a little scary, images in the style of N.C.Not for everyone, but offbeat and grimly amusing.” - Publishers Weekly ” Ironic in their stateliness, Shannon’s paintings-framed, captioned in a scrawled script and otherwise composed to evoke the 18th century-display a sly humor Mary and Anne in profile “pleading their bellies” before a judge will elicit chuckles.
The painterly artwork occasionally depicts the action but mainly alternates between portraits of the characters and illustrations of the ships at sea.” - The Horn Book “Yolen’s spirited verse relates the capture of the legendary pirates Anne Bonney and Mary Reade, who defended their ship alone while the men of the crew gambled below decks.Pirate fans will enjoy Yolen’s informative author’s note–and the alluring skull and crossed swords on the back cover.” - Booklist The eighteenth-century feeling is enhanced by pen-and-ink borders and the use of a parchment-colored background for the text. Shannon’s very handsome acrylic paintings convey the tale’s excitement with dramatic compositions in bold reds against smoky backgrounds. Yolen’s jingly rhymes…lend themselves well to theatrical reading aloud. In this picture book for older readers, Yolen’s ballad recounts the last stand of Anne Bonney and Mary Reade, real-life women pirates of the early 1700s. “Finally, equal time for female ruffians.For the rest of the week, whether at dinner, bedtime or on the beach, one or the other would spontaneously break out with recitals of that magic paragraph,with the other joining in. But more striking still, when I got to the third repetition of “and silver the coins”, both children recited it verbatim with me. Both children’s eyes grew to the size of saucers. Coincidentally one of the local ‘pirate’ ships sailed past. While sitting on the beach with this boy, now age 7, and his sister age 3, I told them about the island’s old name of Tortugas and the pirate history and decided to read them the book.
We took the entire family to Grand Cayman for a holiday last week, and this was one book we took with. What shocked us was his suddenly reciting the words and eventually the entire paragraph with us “and silver the coins…”. To our surprise and delight he loved the rhythm of the words even if he did not entirely understand them. The oldest, a boy, loves pirate stories and while we were skeptical about a book set in poetry, the illustrations are so compelling we thought we would give it a try when he was 5. We love reading to our grandchildren at bedtime. See a review in Rambles – a cultural arts magazine (on the Web). It was a featured selection of the Children’s Book-of-the-Month Club, a nominee for Vermont’s Red Clover Award, and an ALA Notable in 1996. I understand a couple of folk singers have put the ballad to music. Shannon did an incredibly powerful job on the art.
“Write a ballad,” she said, “something that will replace all those old war-horses still used in schools.” So I told the story of Ann Bonney and Mary Reade, those two great friends and partners-in-crime, in bouncy rhyme. Did I know if there were any? Did I! My very first published book had been PIRATES IN PETTICOATS back in 1963, the only book of its kind to this day for young readers. (And I him!) She said he was fascinated by pirates and she had suggested women pirates. My editor Bonnie Verberg called and said that David Shannon–with whom I had just done ENCOUNTER–was dying to do a new book with me. ISBN #0-15-200710-5 Harcourt Voyager paperback
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