A Slow Start Builds To A Rousing, Socko Finish

I'm thinking ice cream sundae here. We start with a scoop of bland vanilla, and then we add more ingredients - nuts, sauces, fudge and sprinkles until by gosh we've got something marvelous. That's how this book is built.

Lewis is pathologically shy and unassertive. His parents are so smothering it's practically child abuse. The only possible lifesaver is Lewis's great-grandfather, who sees something of substance in Lewis that just needs to be drawn out and kickstarted. So, of course, within a few pages grandfather passes away. The family moves to grandfather's ancient seaside manse, and Lewis finds a tower room to call his own. It's great, except for those seven ghost pirates.

As I noted, the book's opening is almost painful and shy-Lewis is a grim and frustrating character. But, we get Lewis into the tower bedroom pretty quickly, and we introduce the pirates without a lot of shilly-shallying. Once they appear the book starts to take off. I'm not automatically in love with pirate characters and I think there are more ways to do pirates badly than there are to do them well. But, these are easily the best pirate characters that I've read in quite a while. They are rough and tough and scary. They're also full of life, (you know, for dead guys), and energy. They can be charming, funny, good-humored, threatening, crude, polite, friendly, nasty, petulant, impatient, and childish. They can also be noble and inspiring. In short, they are fascinating, fun, daunting, and the best thing that could ever have happened to Lewis. (We don't waste any time with the usual "ghost" and "haunting" stuff. The pirates appear and disappear as the mood strikes and are basically just characters who happen to be ghosts.)

Once the pirates show up, the main plotline emerges. Lewis has to get them back to their ship, which is in the local museum, in order to free them from their centuries old bondage to the house. How he figures out how to do that, and how he screws up the courage and moxie to pull it off, makes up the balance of the book. But along the way we give Lewis a gal-pal sidekick, (the unflappable Abbie), we tie up some clever plot threads, we take down some bullies, we get the parents back on track, and we add a few interesting side characters. We get great set pieces - pirate ghosts at the thrift store, the world's toughest kindergärtner, reading pirate books to the ghosts, Abbie's first meeting with the ghosts. Page by page Lewis becomes less of a dysfunctional sad sack. In keeping with that, and along the same lines, page by page the book picks up more energy and color and humor and character.

All of this builds to a socko finish at the museum. And get this - while I promise NO SPOILERS I will note that this was one of the most exciting, tightly written, fast-paced, breathless, inspiring and upbeat finishes I've ever read in a middle grade book. You're almost cheering for Lewis by the end, which, to follow my sundae analogy, is most definitely the cherry on top.

So, this was just so much more than a semi-predictable pirate-ghost story. I was delighted with this find. (Please note that I received a free advance ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)

Solidly entertaining, not even a little frightening. It actually kind of reminded me of Blackbeard's Ghost. While I'm not a fan of "good" pirates, but I didn't mind it as much in this case. Characterization is solid if predictable. Funny with an affirming message.