Captain Firebeard's School for Pirates: The Sneaky Sweet Stealer by Chae Strathie and Anna Chernyshova
| Captain Firebeard's School for Pirates: The Sneaky Sweet Stealer by Chae Strathie and Anna Chernyshova | |
|
| |
| Category: Confident Readers | |
| |
Reviewer: John Lloyd
 | |
| Summary: A welcome second book in this series, but one that doesn't quite match up to the delights of the first. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 204 | Date: August 2017 |
| Publisher: Scholastic | |
| ISBN: 9781407163406 | |
|
Share on: | |
|
| |
The Rusty Barnacle is set to sail again, with a second term for the wannabe pirates and their teachers and crew. Tommy, despite being late, is the keenest pupil there – after all, he has great friends, enemies he can easily vanquish, and a very good novice parrot for company. But everyone on board has reason for concern when they set sail – the prize sweets from the tuck shop are going missing in great quantities. Who could possibly be behind this mystery?
I said in my review of the first book that there wasn't a huge amount of surprise in store for anyone, and I don't think there will be too many readers finding much surprise here, either. OK, I'll admit this book is for the under-nines, but even so – the way a certain something is set-up is rather blatant, and as a result the drama can feel a little lacking. That said, it is certainly on the interesting side for the target audience, and Tommy, Jo the roustabout girl pirate, and Milton the scaredy-cat PoC one, are definitely likeable enough to justify more than one reading.
What's more, there is no small amount of invention in the verbal presentation – the text isn't all pirate cliché, but just the right amount, and the many sweet and chocolate names found in the tuck shop would defeat many a lesser author. What I did find disappointing, in the light of what I remembered of the first book, was that the presentation was black and white, when we had colour last time. Yes, just one colour – the vivid orange shade similar to the hairs belonging to the training ship's Captain Firebeard – but it really made the book stand out. Here, despite the multitude of different fonts, and breaking-out into LARGE BOLD BITS for little reason, it looks a little too, well, ordinary.
Still, ordinary can still be better than satisfactory, and so is this. There is a brio and vim to the telling, and it remains a perfectly decent story, set in an enjoyable – and ever-expanding – pirate world. It's definitely term two, but completely self-contained, so they could still be read in any order. I wish it well in the marketplace, for it deserves an audience, which I hope it gets even while in black and white. If not, then the colour-thief should spend some time with a Jagsnaggler.
I must thank the publishers for my review copy.
The same audience will probably enjoy The Demon Headmaster: Total Control by Gillian Cross which acts as a reboot of that older, but ever sprightly, series.
Please share on: 
Facebook, 
Twitter and
Instagram
You can read more book reviews or buy Captain Firebeard's School for Pirates: The Sneaky Sweet Stealer by Chae Strathie and Anna Chernyshova at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy Captain Firebeard's School for Pirates: The Sneaky Sweet Stealer by Chae Strathie and Anna Chernyshova at Amazon.com.
Comments
Like to comment on this review?
Just send us an email and we'll put the best up on the site.
