Pirates Buccaneers Other Scallywags Swashbucklers A Complete Film Guide

It's time for recess, and the schoolyard is teeming with young pirates ready for action.

Discover the "fascinating and outrageously readable" account of the roguish acts of the first pirates to raid the Pacific in a crusade that ended in a sensational trial back in England--perfect for readers of Nathaniel Philbrick and David McCullough (Douglas Preston, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Lost City of the Monkey God) The year is 1680, in the heart of the Golden Age of Piracy, and more than three hundred daring, hardened pirates--a potent mix of low-life scallywags and a rare breed of gentlemen buccaneers--gather on a remote Caribbean island. The plan: to wreak havoc on the Pacific coastline, raiding cities, mines, and merchant ships. The booty: the bright gleam of Spanish gold and the chance to become legends. So begins one of the greatest piratical adventures of the era--a story not given its full due until now. Inspired by the intrepid forays of pirate turned Jamaican governor Captain Henry Morgan--yes, that Captain Morgan--the company crosses Panama on foot, slashing its way through the Darien Isthmus, one of the thickest jungles on the planet, and liberating a native princess along the way. After reaching the South Sea, the buccaneers, primarily Englishmen, plunder the Spanish Main in a series of historic assaults, often prevailing against staggering odds and superior firepower. A collective shudder racks the western coastline of South America as the English pirates, waging a kind of proxy war against the Spaniards, gleefully undertake a brief reign over Pacific waters, marauding up and down the continent. With novelistic prose and a rip-roaring sense of adventure, Keith Thomson guides us through the pirates' legendary two-year odyssey. We witness the buccaneers evading Indigenous tribes, Spanish conquistadors, and sometimes even their own English countrymen, all with the ever-present threat of the gallows for anyone captured. By fusing contemporaneous accounts with intensive research and previously unknown primary sources, Born to Be Hanged offers a rollicking account of one of the most astonishing pirate expeditions of all time.

A boy overcomes his first-day-of-school fears by imagining It's Not a School Bus, It's a Pirate Ship! Set sail on the high-seas with him in this picture book adventure by writer Mickey Rapkin and illustrator Teresa Martinez! The first day of school means the first ride on the school bus. But who will I sit with? What if no one talks to me? Luckily this isn’t a school bus, it’s a pirate ship! And this crew has one motto: “One for all and all for FUN!” So set sail on a voyage across the high seas! And prepare to make some pirate buddies along the way in this adventure about overcoming your anxiety. An Imprint Book “Rapkin and Martinez build on the imaginative fun of It’s Not a Bed, It’s a Time Machine . . . Martinez’s whimsical flights of fancy fill the illustrations to bursting. Imagination conquers fear yet again.” —Kirkus Reviews

PiratesPirates dominate movie box office profits, they are theme park entertainment, and they occupy a place in popular culture that has outlasted the era when they originally ruled the seas. Contemporary audiences who are safe from the pistols and cutlasses of the men who sailed the Caribbean, Indian, and Atlantic Oceans to prey upon ships and claim their cargo may find it hard to reconcile the perceived glamor of Captain Jack Sparrow with the authentic bloodlust and greed of the real pirates who killed without conscience, kidnapped innocent victims for ransom, and ravaged, bribed, and robbed their way into legend. Tragut Rais, Grace O'Malley, William Kidd, Blackbeard and their colleagues were dangerous adventurers who lived at a time when piracy was an economic enterprise which yielded both wealth and a hangman's noose. Inside you will read about...- When Pirates Owned the Seas - The Roots of Piracy - The Original Pirates of the Caribbean - The Pirate Round - Piracy after the Spanish War of Succession - The Pirates of the Barbary Coast - The Modern-Day Pirates Most pirates had a short life before they were captured and executed. A few lucky ones did die of natural causes, but they were rare. Nonetheless, those tales of swashbuckling adventure under the Jolly Roger continue to mesmerize us. Read more about the reality of the Golden Age of Piracy to find out whether or not Hollywood's version can possibly compare with the truth.

Pirates in Their Own Words is a collection of original documents relating to the 'golden age' of piracy. Letters, testimonies, witness accounts and other primary source documents written by the pirates themselves, their victims, and the men who hunted them down.

Braid Beard and his pirate crew return to retrieve the treasure they buried in Jeremy Jacob's backyard, but first they must help calm his baby sister, Bonney Anne, whom they awoke from her nap.