Pirates and Privateers

Cindy Vallar, Editor & Reviewer
P.O. Box 425, Keller, TX  76244-0425

Books for Pirate Apprentices and Young Adults

With Britain and America at war, living on the outskirts of civilization is risky. Hannah Pritchard’s father, however, ignores neighbors’ suggestions to move the family to a safer location. Then British soldiers and Iroquois warriors attack the homestead. Only Hannah survives because she was out picking berries and sought shelter in a cave. Mr. Van der Beck finds her and arranges for Hannah to go to Boston to live with her grandmother, but once there, Hannah learns her grandmother, a devout Tory, left with the British.

Although Mr. Van der Beck gives her the name of his sister, who owns a tavern in Portsmouth, should Hannah need someone, she has no money to purchase a ticket for the stagecoach. She decides to sell her mother’s silver candlesticks to their maker, Paul Revere. At first she’s accused of being a thief, but the silversmith soon sorts everything out and arranges for her transportation.

Lottie and Madeline welcome Hannah with open arms. The work is hard, but she soon finds herself making new friends. In her off hours, Hannah likes to wander the wharves and watch the arriving and departing seamen and ships. Unable to resist the call of the sea and wanting revenge for the murder of her family, Hannah dons her brother’s clothes – which provided her a means of safer passage from her farm to Boston – and signs aboard as the cabin boy and cook’s helper of the Sea Hawk, a privateer commanded by Captain Jones.

As Jack Pritchard, Hannah keeps her true identity a secret as she learns the ropes. She befriends another new seaman named Daniel, but she has an enemy aboard. Larson holds a grudge against her because she got the job his nephew should have. Making life miserable for Hannah is his way of getting even, but it also gets her into trouble. If that’s not enough of a problem, they are at sea for one purpose – capturing enemy ships – and sooner or later she must come face to face with the enemy. Will she get the revenge she seeks, or will she get captured and face charges of piracy?

This fourteen chapter book is written for children, particularly girls, in grades three through six and is part of Enslow’s Historical Fiction Adventure series. Since it is based on real historical events, each book ends with “The Real History behind the Story,” a recommended reading list of other pirate stories – fictional and true – and websites to visit for additional information on the American Revolution and privateers.

Pryor vividly portrays the reality of war as seen through the eyes of fourteen-year-old Hannah, who must make her own way in the world. Her adventures allow young readers to safely visit colonial New England while venturing alongside Hannah as she begins a new life fraught with adventure and danger. Fans of the Jacky Faber series will enjoy Hannah Pritchard: Pirate of the Revolution as will readers who want a young heroine who takes risks and stands up for herself.

The second adventure in the Hannah Pritchard series finds our heroine, disguised as her brother Jack, climbing aloft the Majestic, a captured British ship. A privateer for the Americans, Hannah soon returns to the Sea Hawk with her friends, Daniel, Dobbs, and Ratso. When Hannah and her mates find themselves surrounded by fog off the Carolina coast, they discover they not only have to fear the dangerous coastline, but also the British warship hunting them.
 
The drunken first mate engages the warship, rather than pretending to be escorting a captured American prize. Outgunned and outmanned, the two vessels can’t escape. Captain Nelson sends Hannah and her friends ashore with the gold, which they bury. But their plans to escape are soon ended, and they find themselves prisoners of war. Since the British don’t recognize privateers as legitimate prisoners, they are considered pirates. Rather than hang, they are imprisoned in an overcrowded warehouse. Each day, the cruel warden comes and removes several men who never come back.
 
Before long, Hannah and her friends are the ones who are summoned. They aren’t hanged. Rather they must row themselves out to the Jersey, a former ship turned into a prison hulk where smallpox and other diseases run rampant and cruel guards take out their anger on the prisoners. Will Hannah and her friends survive?
 
For those who want to know more about the history behind this story, there are several pages at the end devoted to food at sea, wartime prisons, prison ships, and other historical events incorporated into Hannah’s tale. There is also a list of fiction and nonfiction books to read and websites to visit to learn more about sailors and women during the American Revolution.
 
This action-packed story presents an often overlooked phase of the American Revolution – privateers and prisoners of war. The gritty reality of life aboard a prison hulk, particularly one with the worst reputation during the war, is vividly portrayed and readers will find themselves holding their breath to see what happens next. Pryor doesn’t romanticize war and how it affects people, and by portraying young characters amidst the action, readers come to learn that war involves people of all ages, not just adults.