Synopsis
Ferocious pirate Captain Firebeard THINKS that he and the ruthless crew of the "Horrible Haddock" rule the high seas. But Firebeard and his band meet their match when they kidnap a small but feisty girl named Molly. Even after the pirates threaten Molly with sharks and make her scrub the deck, she is utterly defiant -- and will NOT tell Firebeard who her parents are. All the while, Molly is busy sending secret messages in bottles...but to whom? When her rescuers arrive, the pirates are in for a real surprise! For the TRUE fiercest pirate on the seas is none other than Molly's mother!
Publishers Weekly
Captain Firebeard, helmsman Morgan O'Meany and the crew of the Horrible Haddock make "the knees of honest seafaring folk... shake like jelly." But they meet their match in Molly, a small but sturdy girl whose thick auburn ponytails rival the Captain's bushy beard. Like a Little Red Riding Hood of the high seas, Molly is sailing a skiff to her grandmother's house when she is snared "like a herring" and tossed aboard the Haddock for ransom. "If I told you my mother's name,... you'd cry like a baby!" Molly snarls, to the pirates' hearty but short-lived amusement. Funke and Meyer, whose The Princess Knight sets a precedent for this feisty heroine, do not expect Molly to defeat her kidnappers single-handed. Instead, Molly sends messages in empty rum bottles until her mother, the operatically outsize Barbarous Bertha, arrives with an imposing and equally scurvy lot of pirate women. Against the changeable turquoise-to-blue-gray sea and white sky, the blazing-orange hair of Molly, Firebeard and Bertha makes them centers of attention, and readers will notice a black cat becoming Molly's silent ally. Funke and Meyer convey the pirates' surly toughness while hinting at a fierce mother-daughter bond. Ages 3-5. (June) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.