Polly and the Pirates

Polly and the Pirates by Ted Naifeh
Teen Manga – Main Level - POL

Our story opens with the young Polly Pringle at boarding school. She is regarded by her peers as sweet but much too willing to abide by the rules. That very night, her bed is hoisted out of her bedroom onto a pirate ship. She refuses to believe the awful truth at first: she is the only daughter of the famous Pirate Queen, taken as her crew’s last chance to find the Pirate Queen’s Hoard. The Pirate Prince, a handsome and untrustworthy-looking young man, is also after the treasure, and the Navy is after the lot of them. Polly rises to the occasion in a glorious way, proving in a manner quite unsettling to herself that she has inherited large amounts of her mother’s talent at nefarious business. Naifeh’s whimsical art, where the ships look like buildings, suits the story perfectly and is quite different from the moody shaded work he produced for Holly Black’s The Good Neighbors. This is rated for 7 and up, and I think it could go even younger if the child in question can sit still for an exciting story (we have it in teen because it predates our youth graphic novel collection.) The book says “Volume 1”, but I regret to say that my visit to Ted Naifeh’s web site failed to turn up any signs of a sequel in the works. Still, there’s a lot to be said for a one-shot story, and this one is highly entertaining.