You wouldn’t want to be a pirate’s prisoner

Spanish merchant ships tried to sail across the sea, but they were caught by PIRATES. It was all for one thing. Gold. You can try to say you don’t have it. They know you’re lying. And then they throw you into a prison, with Rats.
I like this book. I don’t know why. I just do. Maybe, it’s the way it makes me feel. I don’t care though. It feels good.

I give this book five stars, because it was very entertaining, had good facts, and had a lot of great illustrations. This is probably one of my favorite “You wouldn’t want to be” books, because it was more spine-chilling than any of the other books in the series. I would definitely suggest this book to other people. The book gives you a good view of all the things pirates would do to you. As always, I did enjoy how short the book was, and how it had a ‘Handy Hint’ box on every page. No joke, the ‘Handy Hints’ they gave you would have been very useful at the times were the pirates would torture you. I think this book definitely deserves five stars.

You definitely would not want to become a pirate's prisoner, here are some reasons why. What first happens is that you are attacked by pirates that want your treasures, then of course they want more and as the captain, you cannot and will not tell the pirates what course the other treasure ships are taking. So since you won't confess, the pirates will pretty much torture you, until you tell them what they need to know. To start, they clamp you in large , heavy leg irons called bilboes. They leave you fastened on the deck for seven whole days. If that doesn’t loosen your tongue, they try it the old fashioned way… with the dreaded cat-o’-nine-tails. This is a tool that is made out of long rope that is tied to a wooden stick, and each of the ropes ‘tails’ has three knots tied in it. It is used to whip a person. (Some cat-o’-nine-tails have fish hooks at the end of the cat’s tails. Ouch!) After being torchered for so long, you decide to tell the pirates about the other ships, since they now know what they need, you are useless. You are stranded on an island, and eventually found by a nearby ship. Luck you! ( )

"Mom," my daughter said this afternoon, "I want you to read this pirate book you got for me. I don't think it's appropriate for children my age."

Reading the book, I felt irritated that it was written in the second person, but what my daughter thought was "inappropriate" were the detailed descriptions and cartoon-like drawings of methods of torture.

I checked out this book for her because it was in the recommended reading section of her history curriculum. I used to pre-read everything, but now that she's almost nine and because I'm just tired, I've been handing her things with little to no previewing.

And I must say, my technique is working swimmingly. There's no need to censor her reading because she's doing a fine job censoring it for herself. I just hope she has better luck than I'm having shaking the image of the cat-o'-nine-tails with bloody fish hooks tied to the tails.
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