The Jolley-Rogers and the Cave of Doom

Piratical fun in huge amounts for all land-lubbers out there! The story starts with the Jolley-Rogers deciding to swap a day on their pirate ship for a day at the beach. It's soon clear that this will not be a day of sandcastles and ice creams, but instead a high adventure filled with gold treasure, ships in bottles and sea hags! Each member of the family enters a dark, gloomy cave in turn, but on finding the treasure it holds inside, is seemingly put under a curse and unable to move. Bones, the family's faithful dog, saves the day by enlisting the story's heroine Matilda to rescue them all. The hilariously revolting Sea Hags will delight every reader with their antics. After the initial meeting of the witches, the reader might feel that very bad things are going to happen to the pirates - especially when they are described as being on the menu! These slug gateau eating, rhyming couplet speaking, collectors of all pirate paraphernalia turn out to be delightfully funny Sea Hags! Very soon, Matilda is taking them into town on the local bus and helping them to trade in gold doubloons in order to get a bank account. The book is enhanced by appealing illustrations on virtually every page, which include the Sea Hags's rhymes in speech bubbles. The narrative language used is of a high quality, thus providing a super model for young story writers. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and feel it would have wide-range appeal. After the extremely popular The Pirates Next Door, Jonny Duddle has produced another entertaining, dare I say, swashbuckling read!

Suggested Reading Age 7+