Book Review: Deadweather and Sunrise

Deadweather and Sunrise: The Chronicles of Egg, Book 1 by Geoff Rodkey
Publisher: Putnam Juvenile
Paperback Release Date: March 5, 2013
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

Publicist’s Description:

Twelve-year old Egbert lives on Deadweather Island, home to broken-down pirates and his family’s ugly fruit plantation. Life on the island has never been easy for Egbert – less because of pirate-infested waters and more because of the constant ridicule of his two older, obnoxious siblings. But things soon get even more difficult when Egg’s family disappears in a freak hot-air balloon accident. Egg finds himself on the run from a wealthy and powerful villain who’s trying to murder him for his connection to a hidden treasure – a connection Egg barely understands. He’s also hopelessly in love with the villain’s daughter, who, along with his new friend Gus, he’ll have to depend on to help save the day.

Deadweather and Sunrise is a great pirate adventure that I think will appeal to its target audience – middle grade boys. The hero has some familiar qualities – a dead mother and a father and siblings who don’t treat him that well. I haven’t seen a pirate adventure recently though – I think it will be a nice change for boys who have already read all the wizard and dragon books out there. This is the first book of a trilogy so I think some of the characters will be fleshed out more in the next two books. I know that Guts, a thirteen year old pirate missing a hand, must have a great back-story that comes out at some point. I’m also looking forward to finding out why the pirate Burn Healy is so helpful to Egg when he is ruthless to everyone else.

This book is recommended for 5th grade (10 years old) and up, which I think is spot-on. It’s packed full of adventure, which I think boys that age will love, but it does have some killing and death and threats of killing that may be too violent for younger readers to handle even if they are reading at the 5th grade level. Also, when a 13 year old girl gets captured by pirates, it’s clear to an adult reader that she’s in danger of being sexually assaulted. However, it’s written cryptically enough that I don’t think the middle grade reader will catch on. They might ask you a question about it though. I have an 8 year old that could read this book but I’m going to wait a couple of years to pass it on to him. When I do, I think he’ll really like it.

Come back tomorrow – I’ll have a guest post from the author and a giveaway for SIGNED copies BOTH of this book AND the second book in the series!

Buy this book at:

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(I received a copy of this book courtesy of the publicist.)