Summary: What If you met a Pirate by Jan Adkins is about the real life pirates of our times. A lot of pirates that are portrayed in books or movies have an inaccurate portrayal of real pirates. The book explores what a pirate would actually be like and how a person would know it’s a pirate. It explores what clothing and ships look like as well as what pirates really did all day. It goes into detail about how to sail and what duties a pirate had on the ship. It also projects how pirates attacked other ships and who were the real captains. The conclusion lets readers know where all the pirates have vanished to.
Citation: Adkins, J. (2004). What if you met a pirate. Brookfield, CT: Roaring Brook Press.
Impressions: I think that this book is fun and informational. I even learned a few things about pirates that I didn’t even know. I learned why pirates dressed the way they did and their actual duties on a ship. I don’t know much about ships so it was interesting to learn about captains and what pirates had to do to keep a ship afloat. The pictures were detailed and each was practically labeled as to why it was drawn or how it related. It was a little wordy which might turn off students who might get discouraged from all the information but I think the illustrations will save it for being dull.
Reviews:
From Kirkus ReviewsWHAT IF YOU MET A PIRATE? (reviewed on September 1, 2004)
Adkins rejects the conventional glamorous image of the pirate to construct a scruffier, though only slightly less romanticized, one in this sweeping history of privateers, buccaneers, freebooters, and similar nautical nogoodnicks. Though he may characterize them as “violent, wicked criminals,” he downplays the more lurid tales of their bad behavior, focusing instead on generalities about their habits, hygiene (“Most pirates had bad teeth, and not very many of them”), and seamanship. He also introduces Sir Francis Drake, William Kidd, Henry Morgan, and other piratical luminaries—often so that he can go on about their bad ends. Scattering loosely drawn but practiced vignettes of men and ships around snippets of historical fact, Adkins offers nothing new beyond a distinctly personal tone, but the topic is hot just now, and there’s enough about ships and sailing here to draw more than narrowly focused pirate fans. (Picture book/nonfiction. 8-10)
Kirkus Review associates. Review. Kirkus Reviews Online. Retrieved from http://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/jan-adkins/what-if-you-met-a-pirate/#review
From Booklist
*Starred Review* Gr. 3-5. Can it be that walking the plank was a fictional punishment invented by illustrator Howard Pyle? In this appealing book, Adkins gives readers the lowdown on what life under the pirate flag was really like. After setting up the conventional portrait of swaggering, singing sailors in colorful duds, he replaces it with a more realistic picture of hard-working sailors who "might swashbuckle just a few hours each month" and bathed considerably less. Yet this realistic portrayal of pirates and their activities is even more intriguing than the romanticized version he debunks. Adkins strikes just the right note in the text, always informative and frequently entertaining as well. Bright with color washes, the excellent, energetic drawings show pirates engaged in a variety of activities, from pumping out the bilge to braiding each other's hair to using the open-air bathroom at the front of the ship. In a send-up of current book marketing, the back cover carries appreciative comments by the likes of Queen Elizabeth I and Leonardo da Vinci. Where pirate fever runs high this spirited presentation will find an enthusiastic audience. For more titles, see the Read-alikes, "Ship Ahoy!" [BKL S 1 04].
Phelan, C. (2004) Booklist Review. Retrieved from http://www.booklistonline.com/What-If-You-Met-a-Pirate-Jan-Adkins/pid=664172.
Suggestions: I like pirates themes in the library so I think that this book would be great to use to compare and contrast with other pirate related books. Students can pick out the differences in other books and maybe discuss why they think the information could be a misconception.
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