Children's books, Age 10+

Buckle that swash! Hot on the heels of the film Pirates of the Caribbean comes Celia Rees’s Pirates! While the Hollywood offering was a sublimely camp romp, this is a rollocking tale of slavery, sisterhood, black-hearted bridegrooms and, of course, treasure.

Nancy Kington, the narrator, is the daughter of a Bristol merchant and plantation owner in the early 18th century. A tomboy, she learns how to fence, and falls in love with a poor boy, William, who joins the Navy and rises rapidly through the ranks. When her dying father’s business fails, however, Nancy promises him that she will restore the family fortunes. Little does she know, on travelling to the West Indies and Port Royal, that her crooked brother plans to sell her as a bride to black-hearted Bartholeme, a former pirate of legendary cruelty.

Nancy makes friends with Minerva, the daughter of her father’s African slave, and when the heroine discovers her father’s foreman trying to rape her friend, she kills him. The two girls escape together. First, they join a band of runaway slaves in the hills, the Maroons, but Bartholeme’s desire for Nancy, and the fabulous necklace of rubies he gave her as a bride-gift, soon forces the girls to escape on a pirate ship.

There were, of course, women pirates, and it is splendid to see them so thoroughly imagined in a genre dominated by boys. As in her best-selling Witch Child, Rees excels at describing the way her characters flout convention, and draws on the work of the great Daniel Defoe to do so. (In an amusing touch, Nancy is writing her story for his inspection.) Her descriptions of life on a plantation and on board a pirate ship, and the difficulties of being a beautiful young woman among a group of sailors, have just the right amount of realism. One of the best features of the novel is the amount of history that young readers will absorb. Officers, for example, frequently swap sides rather than endure the harsh life of the British Navy.

True love, of course, doesn’t run smooth, and Nancy’s sweetheart is horrified when he discovers her, dressed as a man, in a brothel. Despite the mention of whores, there is no sex and only a little violence towards the end when, with the evil Bartholeme in relentless pursuit, the tale comes to a thoroughly satisfying happy ending. Beautifully written and gloriously good-hearted, Pirates! is a treasure of a book to give to any girl or boy.

Read on

• Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson (10+)
  
• Nightbirds on Nantucket, by Joan Aiken (9+)
  
• Pirate Diary, by Richard Platt (8+)
  
• Pugwash the Pirate series, by John Ryan (3+)

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