Review by Booklist Review
In a town appropriately named Dull-on-Sea, where the inhabitants' average age is 67, the townspeople don't exactly extend a warm welcome when the Jolley-Rogers roll in. The family of pirates anchor next door to young Tilda and stay only long enough to fix their boat and upset just about every staid member of the community (except Tilda, who befriends the pirate boy and relishes the adventures they have). Told in rhyme, the story traces the neighbors' complaints and the petition to kick the pirates out of town. Much to the oldsters' surprise, the parting pirates leave treasures in everyone's backyard and cause a change of heart. With plenty of ye olde pirate phrases, a rollicking rhythm, a comics-panel format replete with speech bubbles, and detailed digital images featuring a host of eyepatched, tattooed, and hook-handed stock characters, there is much to explore. Young pirate fans will come back for more.--Austin, Patricia Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Good fences make good neighbors, but pirates? Not so much. At least not according to the residents of the tiny, proper town of Dull-on-Sea ("Sister city: Ennui-sur-Mer"), most of whom are horrified when the Jolley-Rogers family roll into town on their galleon-on-wheels. "Isn't it disgraceful, on such a lovely street?/ Why, they don't even try to keep their front lawn looking neat!" Next-door neighbor Matilda, however, is thrilled by all the excitement, and she befriends pirate boy Jim Lad. Once the family's ship is, well, shipshape, the Jolley-Rogers set sail, leaving buried treasure (marked by an X, of course) in their wake as a goodwill gesture (this is not the first town that's rallied against them). Duddle's (The Pirate Cruncher) rhymes have the buoyant, singsong quality of a sea shanty, but are weighed down by a fairly preachy plot. His cinematic and richly developed digital artwork, however, is well-suited to the absurdity of the subject matter, and he does an excellent job of exaggerating the pirates' slightly menacing yet silly appearance and the concerned glances and raised eyebrows of the unwelcoming community. Ages 3-up. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 2-Life for Matilda in the town of Dull-on-Sea is, well, dull. Just when she is wishing that things were less boring, a family of pirates moves in next door. There is a boy her age, Jim, and their completely unconventional lifestyle lifts the ennui from the gloomy town. But one young girl's thrill is the rest of the neighborhood's nightmare, as rumors and the community's aesthetic demise lead to a full-on campaign to ship the Jolley-Rogers back where they came from. Tilda and Jim do not seem concerned by the disapproval of others; he accepts it as a matter of course (Dull-on-Sea is merely a pit stop for his family as they repair their ship, parked next to the house) and Tilda is a stouthearted advocate for pirates. Yet this lighthearted story belies a wretched truth-that grown-ups are judgmental, though they can be easily swayed when they find buried treasure in their backyards. Fans of pirates won't really care about the mixed message; they will be having too much fun listening to the rhyming text and looking at the details in the caricatured pictures. Pirate paraphernalia abounds, and there is even a hint that the complaints manager at Town Hall is a pirate himself, unbeknownst to the locals. The layout, combining spreads and cartoon blocking, keeps the story moving and reinforces the idea of different voices gossiping about the town's eccentric new residents. A jolly good tale for one-on-one sharing.-Kara Schaff Dean, Walpole Public Library, MA (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
In this send-up of class-consciousness, a pirate family moves next door to a girl whose mom participates in the neighborhood's effort to oust them. This ingenious book contains many pleasures; alas, its rhymes can't keep the beat. With his illustrations of a loving family oblivious to its otherness, Duddle does for pirates what Charles Addams did for his ghoulish clan. (c) Copyright 2012. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Pirate Cruncher, 2010) depicts Matilda and the pirates having wild pirate fun as comically dismayed townies huddle and recoil. No worries: the Jolley-Rogers are only ashore temporarily to make some repairs, and one morning they're gone--leaving large X's in everyone's yard marking, as a double gatefold reveals, buried chests of treasure to show that "pirates aren't so bad." Veiled in humor, but hard not to read as a parable that tweaks narrow minds and parochial attitudes. (Picture book. 6-8)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
