Maggie and the Pirate by Ezra Jack Keats

There is an important layer to this story that is quietly implied. Take a look at these text quotes:

"Maggie and her parents lived in an old bus which they had made into a home."

"It was the cage ... I wanted it real bad ... I didn't mean for the cricket to die. My ol'man - he never makes any things for me. He doesn't ever talk to me."

In the illustrations we can see a shanty town and the children are wearing mismatched clothing and they have bare feet. So as an adult reader we know poverty is implied. It is important for our children to see other kids living in very different circumstances even if they don't have any understanding of poverty as depicted in this book. 

Maggie loves her little cricket. He lives in a small cage made by her grandfather. 

When her mother asks Maggie to go to the grocery store she hangs the cage on a tree but when she returns the cage and her little cricket friend Niki are gone. On the tree there is a hand written note that says : "The pirate was here."  Maggie is determined to find this "pirate".  Perhaps the title of this book is a little misleading. The "pirate" is just another kid - a lonely, poor and perhaps mistreated kid - who likes the look of the that cage. When Maggie finally tracks him down there is an accident. The boy is perched in a makeshift tree house. It crashes to the ground and the little cricket is killed. 

"They buried Niki. Maggie wrote his name on a piece of wood and put it over the small grave. Paco picked some flowers and brought them over. Then they sang sad songs."

The boy appears and he explains why he took the cricket and the cage - he is deeply sorry. He takes the cage from Maggie and puts a new cricket inside. 

I love the quite words of the ending. Again so much is left unsaid:

"They all sat down together. Nobody said anything. They listened to the new cricket singing. Crickets all around joined in."

Look at the power words here - together, they listened, joined - the promise of new friends!

I mentioned a few days ago that the library I visit each week have filled a tub with books that have not been borrowed for a long time. One of these is Maggie and the Pirate by Ezra Jack Keats. The books in this school library are generally in almost mint condition but this book is quite worn out which is strange because it has not been borrowed since 2001 and in total it has only been borrowed 14 times beginning in 1985. 

I learnt a new word today reading the Kirkus review of Maggie and the Pirate: 

Unlike Keats' city slums, this palm-treed, riverside shantytown has a ramshackle insouciance.

insouciance means: free from concern, worry, or anxiety; carefree; nonchalant

Now comes the difficult decision for the library. Ezra Jack Keats is a very famous US illustrator and his collage illustrations are wonderful and still fresh all these years later. Unfortunately Maggie and the Pirate is now out of print. There are lots of other Ezra Jack Keats books still available so perhaps the library should be content with these but I do know the Teacher-Librarian likes to hold the "body of work" of significant authors and illustrators. Another issue is the confusion that this book is not really about pirates and perhaps the cover is not very appealing to a modern child even though I do like it. Oh and the topic of actual pirates is a fraught one because real pirates do exist and if your school has refugee children this is a topic you should either avoid or treat very sensitively. 

I have talked about two books by Ezra Jack Keats:

Jennie's Hat

Whistle for Willy

Here are other books by Ezra Jack Keats:

The Cricket in Times Square by George Selden

Chester the Cricket, Tucker the mouse and Harry the cat are the most unlikely of friends but thank goodness they are friends because together they are able to help Mario and his family who own a small newsstand in Times Square.

If you enjoyed Tumtum and Nutmeg, The Tale of Despereaux and A Rats Tale then you will certainly love this classic book The Cricket in Times Square. Just like Tumtum and Nutmeg there are moments when I just gasped out loud for example on the night when the friend’s discover Chester has this amazing musical ability. Just when everything is going really well and it seems there might be a way to help Mario and his family who are so poor, Tucker topples over a box of matches. “One match, unluckily, struck right next to a pile of that mornings newspapers. The spurt of flames it sent up lit the frayed edge of the papers and quickly spread over the whole bundle.” This is particularly disastrous since this happens in a small newsstand filled with papers and magazine.

The Cricket in Times Square is once again a very old book. It received a Newbery honor in 1960 but I am very pleased to say that it certainly stands the test of time. I will hunt out a new copy for my school library and this is a book I will recommend to my middle primary readers and their teachers. In USA there was even an animated television show of this book in 1970s.