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Title details for Pirates! by Celia Rees - Wait list

Pirates!

by Celia Rees
Jennifer Wiltsie
Audiobook
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It is the dawn of the eighteenth century, when girls stay home and sew while men sail the high seas finding adventure, danger, and gold. But two unusually adventurous girls—a rich merchant's daughter, Nancy Kington, and her former plantation slave, Minerva Sharpe—take to the high seas from Jamaica on a shop the crew renames Deliverance. Not just any trading ship, the Deliverance flies black flags from its mast, proclaiming to all that the newly named, hijacked ship is a pirate vessel, striking fear into the hearts of those she approaches. Or so they hope.
For Nancy, the Deliverance is her escape from an arranged betrothal to a controlling and devilish man. For Minerva, it is an escape from slavery, as well as from the fearsome overseer on Nancy's family plantation. But in the end, the money, the adventure, the companionship, and the chance to see the world not as women, but as bold and daring pirates, is an opportunity neither can deny.
A powerful, thrilling, and ultimately inspiring journey of two women who break the bonds of gender, race, and position to find their own way to glory.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Awards

  • Release date

    January 27, 2004

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780739353820
      • File size: 256777 KB
      • Duration: 08:54:57

  • Languages

    • English

  • Levels

    • ATOS Level: 5.4
    • Lexile® Measure: 800
    • Interest Level: 6-12(MG+)
    • Text Difficulty: 3-4

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Listeners will be enchanted by Jennifer Wiltsie's narration of the exploits of female pirates Nancy Kington and Minerva Sharpe. Wiltsie's characterization of Nancy, the merchant's daughter, is spellbinding, blending a slightly aristocratic British accent with the attitudes of the eighteenth-century American bourgeoisie. Minerva, a slave at birth, is equally well done. The stage for adventure is set when the two women cross the path of the evil Brazilian pirate turned plantation owner who yearns to marry Nancy so that he may acquire her inheritance. This is an enchanting tale of two brave souls who escape their predetermined stations in life and fight for their freedom. D.L.M. 2005 YALSA Selection (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from October 20, 2003
      Fans of Rees's earlier Witch Child
      will relish this highly romantic cross-dressing romp on the high seas in the early 18th century. Readers new to the author may be drawn in by the book's good looks: handsome cover art and appropriately swashbuckling endpapers. After her family's fortunes founder, and her merchant (and slave trader) father dies, narrator Nancy is sent from her Bristol home to the Jamaica plantation she is slated to inherit. There the 16-year-old learns she has been promised in marriage to the Brazilian Bartholome, a sadistic man rumored to be "the Devil himself." Nancy runs away with Minerva, the slave girl to whom she has grown close, and they wind up on the pirate ship captained by the gentlemanly officer who befriended Nancy on her way to Jamaica. Clad in men's clothes, the two girls adapt quickly to their new life, but Nancy's prophetic nightmares indicate that the Brazilian still hunts for his vanished bride, captaining a "dark ship, sailing under a black hoist with no device upon it." So fast and furious are the pirates' adventures, so enthralling are the girls' passions (Nancy has promised herself to her childhood sweetheart, while Minerva falls hard for Vincent Crosby, "a handsome young mulatto of about five and twenty with skin the colour of dark honey"), that it's easy to ignore the one-dimensionality of the novel's characters (villains are almost always denoted by a lack of personal hygiene). A playful yet intriguing glimpse of 18th-century life as it was lived by those who were not—or chose not to be—gentlefolk. Ages 12-up.

    • Publisher's Weekly

      October 3, 2005
      A wealthy young woman escapes an arranged marriage by posing as a pirate. In a starred review, PW
      wrote, "Fans of Rees's earlier Witch Child
      will relish this highly romantic cross-dressing romp on the high seas in the early 18th century." Ages 12-up.

    • The Horn Book

      July 1, 2004
      Two eighteenth-century women, one a servant and the other the privileged daughter of a wealthy merchant, leave their petticoats and their prescribed roles behind when they join the crew of a pirate ship and embark on adventure on the high seas. Both are fleeing slavery: one as a Jamaican plantation worker and the other as the prospective wife of an enigmatic and evil plantation owner. Narrator Wiltsie chooses a gravely ladylike voice for Nancy Kington, the matter-of-fact narrator; Minerva Sharpe, Nancy's maid-turned-companion, speaks in slightly deeper tones quickened by a Caribbean lilt. Rees's brisk pacing keeps the plot moving despite the sometimes tangential side trips into historical minutiae.

      (Copyright 2004 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

Levels

  • ATOS Level:5.4
  • Lexile® Measure:800
  • Interest Level:6-12(MG+)
  • Text Difficulty:3-4

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