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plaidpladd's review against another edition
1.0
I'm trying to read all the Newberry award winners in order and this one was really bizarre, especially coming off Dr. Doolittle. Very violent and dealing with a lot of things that definitely wouldn't be considered children's literature today. Also I, an adult, found the language kind of tiresome, so I don't know what a child would make of it.
llkendrick's review against another edition
1.0
I got half-way through this book and had to stop. It moved too slow for me and it was written in Old English, so I didn't know what half the words even meant. It reminded me of a Shakespeare class I took in college and how I needed a dictionary every 2 seconds. This was the 1924 Newbery winner and I just don't see how kids could have loved this when there are much better pirate books out there to read - like Treasure Island, Robinson Crusoe, Kidnapped, etc. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone.
mjfmjfmjf's review against another edition
2.0
Continuing my Newbery Winner read/re-read. And this one is a reminder that all new Newbery's are not good. This one was just plain confused. The plot just wandered to no good point. The characters were just hints that started interesting and then added no depth. Sure I'm never a big fan of a sailing book, but this one just added nothing to that. And it was not especially readable. It was not overly long, but it felt long. And then in the end it crammed 20 plus years of life into a couple of pages for no good benefit.
jentaylor312's review against another edition
1.0
I couldn't even bother to finish reading this. I tried really hard to keep going through it because I knew it was a Newberry Award Winner, but I just couldn't do it. The writing just didn't seem that good and the plot didn't interest me at all.
sonshinelibrarian's review against another edition
1.25
Ugh. The writing is so dense and complicated for a children's book. Honestly, I spent a good chunk of the time reading this asking myself repeatedly - how did this win the Newbery? Were there no other children's books published in 1923?
The author tries way too hard to make this sound like it was written at the time it was set. If I had to read "quoth he" one more time...
There are whole sections I'm still confused about - what on earth was that encounter with the dude with the big book who ran into the woods? - and the cast of characters is somehow simultaneously too large and too small. Philip keeps running into the same people over and over but there are so many pirates that I gave up keeping them straight.
And for a pirate story it is somehow simultaneously too gory and violent for a children's book and yet uneventful.
I am so confused and the best thing I have to say about this book is that it was pretty short.
The author tries way too hard to make this sound like it was written at the time it was set. If I had to read "quoth he" one more time...
There are whole sections I'm still confused about - what on earth was that encounter with the dude with the big book who ran into the woods? - and the cast of characters is somehow simultaneously too large and too small. Philip keeps running into the same people over and over but there are so many pirates that I gave up keeping them straight.
And for a pirate story it is somehow simultaneously too gory and violent for a children's book and yet uneventful.
I am so confused and the best thing I have to say about this book is that it was pretty short.
deeznuts69's review against another edition
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
1.25
fell asleep. thank you for reading my review. goodnight.
heyt's review against another edition
3.0
I was promised piracy on the cover but this was a slow burn into that. Historical fiction has never really been my thing but the way Hawes uses the jargon of sailing and the vocabulary of the times really set the atmosphere of the piece. There is no dumbing down the word choices and it does not shy away from the violence of piracy in general. This was definitely an adventure story and seeing how Philip reacted to his changes in circumstance made things interesting. The Lloyd Alexander introduction to this makes note of how this is more lit fic than was common for children's literature at the time and I can totally see that.
readerann's review against another edition
4.0
Newberry Medal winner from 1924. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this well-written, pirate adventure tale!