The Pirates Next Door

PreS-Gr 2—Life for Matilda in the town of Dull-on-Sea is, well, dull. Just when she is wishing that things were less boring, a family of pirates moves in next door. There is a boy her age, Jim, and their completely unconventional lifestyle lifts the ennui from the gloomy town. But one young girl's thrill is the rest of the neighborhood's nightmare, as rumors and the community's aesthetic demise lead to a full-on campaign to ship the Jolley-Rogers back where they came from. Tilda and Jim do not seem concerned by the disapproval of others; he accepts it as a matter of course (Dull-on-Sea is merely a pit stop for his family as they repair their ship, parked next to the house) and Tilda is a stouthearted advocate for pirates. Yet this lighthearted story belies a wretched truth—that grown-ups are judgmental, though they can be easily swayed when they find buried treasure in their backyards. Fans of pirates won't really care about the mixed message; they will be having too much fun listening to the rhyming text and looking at the details in the caricatured pictures. Pirate paraphernalia abounds, and there is even a hint that the complaints manager at Town Hall is a pirate himself, unbeknownst to the locals. The layout, combining spreads and cartoon blocking, keeps the story moving and reinforces the idea of different voices gossiping about the town's eccentric new residents. A jolly good tale for one-on-one sharing.—Kara Schaff Dean, Walpole Public Library, MA