Not a Strong read (The Indoor Pirates - Jeremy Strong)

Member Name: MI9to5

Product:	The Indoor Pirates - Jeremy Strong
Date:	12/09/08 (69 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: The fantastic illustrations

Disadvantages: Not many laughs

Although I am a big fan of Jeremy Strong's books I have to say that "The Indoor Pirates" is not one of favourites. I'm not saying however that it is an utterly atrocious novel as this is not the case by any means. It simply lacks a certain spark that the majority of his others books have.

The Indoor Pirates tells the story of Captain Blackpatch, who hates the sea. When Blackpatch inherits 25 Dolphin Street from his great grandmother he's overjoyed as this means he can live on land and so he writes to all of the other pirates he knows that also hate the sea and invites them to come and live with him. Being pirates that hate the sea they all jump at the opportunity to live on land and very soon 25 Dolphin Street is home not only to Captain Blackpatch but also Bald Ben, Polly and Molly and Lumpy Lawson.

For a while the Pirates, despite Molly and Polly's constant arguing, live quite happily. They make their house like as much like a ship as possible and daily practice all things piratical. However as they continue having a good old time the bills are slowly mounting up and due to the fact that the pirates haven't had a good plunder in a long time there's not a treasure chest in site. Luckily for them however Captain Blackpatch has a cunning plan...

The Indoor Pirates is one of Jeremy Strong's longer children's books, as there are far more words on every page than in some of his other novels. The book has 85 pages in total and this is broken down into 4 chapters and an introduction, which are all manageable chunks. This makes the book great for children to read at a bedtime, as there is a clear and defined stopping point.

Unlike his other books however I don't feel that there is a great deal of humour within this novel. Ok I am not, at 18 years old, the books target audience but saying that I have loved most of his other novels and whilst reading them had a good chuckle to myself. With this book though I did not find myself chuckling very often and when I did it was for a mere few seconds.

Like his other books however this one also contains some fantastic artwork by Nick Sharratt and this really does bring the story to life. In my opinion however there isn't enough artwork in this book and because of the somewhat lack-lustre story I really think it would have benefited from more.

Despite my somewhat negativity in the last two paragraphs this novel certainly isn't one that I would discourage people from buying. I would simply make sure they were aware that if this book is not one that they particularly enjoy then not to throw Jeremy Strong out of the window, as his other novels well exceed the standard of this one.

This book can be readily purchased in all good book shops as well as online. Its RRP is £4.99 but it can be purchased for less if you shop around.

Summary: Not one of his best