Shiver Me Timbers!

Pirates! Take youngsters on a high-seas thrill ride with these true-life tales

By Kathleen Baxter -- School Library Journal, 3/1/2004

Swashbuckling pirates and commanders of tall ships are sailing across movie screens to the delight of young and old alike. Keep the adventure going by sharing these exciting books with your fourth-to sixth-grade students.

Countless young viewers of the film Pirates of the Caribbean have been charmed by Johnny Depp's comical, endearing character, Captain Jack Sparrow. But after you booktalk Milton Meltzer's Piracy and Plunder: A Murderous Business (Dutton, 2001), they'll soon doubt that anyone like him ever existed.

A real pirate was the worst sort of criminal—vicious and cruel, with the ruthless habit of capturing and selling slaves, the quickest way for a seafaring outlaw to make a buck.

Long John Silver, Blackbeard, and Captain Kidd are well-known pirates who terrorized the Caribbean. Five centuries earlier, bands of pirates roamed the Mediterranean Sea, where wealthy treasure ships plied the waves and countless Europeans set sail for the Holy Lands. Thousands of hapless travelers ended up chained belowdecks on pirate ships, serving as galley slaves. Starved and beaten, many of them died on the benches to which they were chained. Modern-day pirates ply the seas of Southeast Asia, dealing in drugs and weapons. After an excursion through Meltzer's chilling book, your booktalk audience will never again think of a real pirate as a fun guy.

Pirates were not the only sea-goers who tasted adventure along with the salty breezes. A 14-year-old boy is the reluctant hero of Rhoda Blumberg's Shipwrecked!: The True Adventures of a Japanese Boy (HarperCollins, 2001). In 1841, teenage Manjiro set off on a fishing trip with four other men, but got caught in a powerful storm. Blown off course and shipwrecked on a small island, Manjiro and his companions faced death by starvation. Luckily, an American whaling ship appeared offshore.

They were rescued, yet Manjiro's fishing party faced an uncertain future. Fearful of foreign influence, 17th-century Japan discouraged adventurers; a draconian law declared that anyone who left the island country would be executed upon their return. Manjiro's companions chose to settle in Honolulu.

The teenager stayed with the American ship. Within weeks, he was speaking English, doing all sorts of odd jobs for the whalers, and becoming a surrogate son to the ship's captain. Manjiro later signed on with another whaler and traveled the world.

But the boy missed his mother. He returned to the forbidden shores of Japan, knowing he would face execution, most likely a beheading. Can your booktalk listeners guess what happened next to Manjiro? Blumberg's book is a real page-turner!

In The Great Ships (Walker, 2001), Patrick O'Brien spins a fascinating and fact-crammed narrative about the most famous vessels in history. They include a Viking ship that was buried for over a thousand years and the Chinese junk that sailed throughout much of the known world in the early 1400s. The Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria are among the greatest ships of all time. But the three ships Christopher Columbus sailed to the New World required a hardy crew. The sailors had no beds, and at night they found the most comfortable spot they could, on the deck or in the baggage.

Show your audience the illustration of the H.M.S. Bounty, site of the most famous mutiny of all time. The rebellious sailors set the captain and other crew members adrift. Then the mutineers took off for Tahiti and Pitcairn Island—where their descendants still live. Then ask your listeners if the Bounty was a he, a she, or an it. O'Brien tells us that all of the great ships had names and personalities, but every one was referred to as a "she."

And the most famous American ship? That was the Constitution, a proud fighting vessel that sailed against the British in the War of 1812. Americans nicknamed the ship "Old Ironsides" when awestruck sailors witnessed cannon balls bouncing off her thick, wooden hull.

Aye, mateys, there be adventure in these books. Climb aboard if you dare!