Book Review: Magic Marks the Spot by Caroline Carlson

Magic Marks the Spot by Caroline Carlson
Publisher: HarperCollins
Release Date: September 10, 2013
Genre: Middle Grade Fiction
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

Hilary Westfield has always dreamed of being a pirate. She can tread water for thirty-seven minutes. She can tie a knot faster than a fleet of sailors, and she already owns a rather pointy sword.

There’s only one problem: The Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates refuses to let any girl join their ranks of scourges and scallywags.

But Hilary is not the kind of girl to take no for answer. To escape a life of petticoats and politeness at her stuffy finishing school, Hilary sets out in search of her own seaworthy adventure, where she gets swept up in a madcap quest involving a map without an X, a magical treasure that likely doesn’t exist, a talking gargoyle, a crew of misfit scallywags, and the most treacherous—and unexpected—villain on the High Seas.

The Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates: Magic Marks the Spot is the first book in the new middle grade series, Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates. The second book in the series is due out in September.
I loved that the main character is a girl who wants to be a pirate. She tries hard to be very fearsome and doesn’t really have any feminine qualities. Hillary’s best friend Claire is feminine though so it’s a good balance. Because of that, this book will appeal to both boys and girls.

This book is very funny for kids but also had some dry wit that probably only parents would get. So if you read this book with your child, you will be entertained as well. My favorite character was Hillary’s governess, Miss Greyson. The things she said made me smile. She’s very prim and proper and nicely tries to keep Hilary in line. But pirates aren’t prim and proper so she has a tough time.

While this book doesn’t have any pictures, it does have drawings of letters and scrolls. Some of these are written in cursive so if your child can’t read cursive, you can help them with that.
This was a very fun book to read and my nine-year son loved it as well.

For more reviews of books for children and teens, check out Booking Mama’s feature, Kid Konnection, posted on Saturdays. If you’d like to participate in Kid Konnection and share a post about anything related to children’s books (picture, middle grade, or young adult) from the past week, you can go to her site to leave a comment and your link .

(I received this book courtesy of Amazon Vine.)