Premium Members Get 10% Off and Earn Rewards Find Out More

The Pirates Next Door

Add to Wishlist

The Pirates Next Door

Hardcover

$17.99

Hardcover
$17.99

SHIP THIS ITEM

Qualifies for Free Shipping
PICK UP IN STORE
Check Availability at Nearby Stores

Available within 2 business hours

Want it Today?
Check Store Availability

Related collections and offers

Want it Today?
Check Store Availability

Overview

The Jolley-Rogers have traded in the high seas for suburban life.

Meet the Jolley-Rogers — a pirate family who is moving to Dull-on-Sea, a quiet seaside town, while they fix up their ship. This unusual family soon has the whole neighborhood gossiping. Defying the grown-ups, Matilda becomes friends with young pirate Jim Lad. When the JolleyRogers return to sea, the town realizes that they were wrong to assume the worst when it is discovered that the pirates have buried treasure in everyone's yard. The neighbors are thrilled, but Matilda is sad to have lost her new friend, until she discovers her own treasure — a pen pal!

Product Details
About the Author

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780763658427
Publisher:	Candlewick Press
Publication date:	02/28/2012
Pages:	44
Sales rank:	1,098,121
Product dimensions:	9.98(w) x 11.52(h) x 0.43(d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Jonny Duddle is an illustrator and concept artist for films, including The Pirates! by Aardman animation. His first book, The Pirate Cruncher, was long-listed for the Kate Greenaway Medal. Having sailed the high seas in a square-rigger, Jonny is now in danger of becoming a landlubber. He lives with his wife and their daughters in Wales.

From the B&N Reads Blog

Page 1 of

7 Relevant Picture Book Distractions from the Election

This election thing is real; It’s happening. Everyone is talking about it! It’s everywhere you look! It’s the 50 foot gorilla that’s standing right behind you. Don’t look! Isn’t there anywhere you can turn to for relief? Well, I’m glad you asked, reader! Here are some darn wonderful picture books to help take your mind […]

Three Cheers for Talk Like a Pirate Day

Blimey! This can’t be happening. It’s September 19, already? Talk Like a Pirate Day? The most important made up holiday since Splorchday is today, and despite the Countdown to TLaPD app on every device within reach… despite the date circled in red on the refrigerator calendar… despite my well-worn, autographed, and personally inscribed copy of […]

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.)

Publishers Weekly

Duddle’s rhymes have the buoyant, singsong quality of a sea shanty... 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.
—Publishers Weekly

A jolly good tale for one-on-one sharing.
—School Library Journal

Veiled in humor, but hard not to read as a parable that tweaks narrow minds and parochial attitudes.
—Kirkus Reviews

The digital art features slightly exaggerated figures that could easily have stepped out of an animated film... The real fun comes in the contrast between the visual minutiae of the pirate family and the depiction of the “normal” people. It’s in no way subtle, but pirate-wannabes won’t bat an eye patch.
—The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

Duddle has written a delightful story sure to entertain all pirate lovers!
—Library Media Connection (highly recommended)

We've all wanted to run off and be pirates sailing the seven seas and shouting "Argh" at people, but how many of us have had pirates move in next door? Matilda has.
—Huffington Post Parents blog

From the Publisher

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

School Library Journal

A newly moved-in family with a different lifestyle gets a hostile reception from the oh-so-respectable neighbors. Most of them, anyway. As in a dream come true, dazzled young Matilda welcomes Jim Lad, who "had no shoes, an eye patch, and a wooden-legged dog… / a pirate ship with treasure chests and barrels full of grog!" The arrival of Jim's family in aptly named Dull-on-Sea is more of a nightmare for Matilda's parents and the other adults though, who complain vociferously, spread rumors ("They never wash. / Their kids have lice. / They also just don't smell that nice."), and petition Town Hall for an eviction. "Before you know it, there'll be more--we'll all have pirates right next door!" Rendering every detail with concrete exactitude, Duddle (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)

Kirkus Reviews

The Pirates Next Door

The Pirates Next Door

Hardcover

Hardcover

Related collections and offers

Overview

Product Details

About the Author

Customer Reviews

Related Searches

Explore More Items

Related collections and offers

Overview

Product Details

About the Author

Related Subjects

Customer Reviews