Early Review – The High Skies Adventures of Blue-Jay the Pirate by Scott Nash (4/5 stars)

Reading Level: Children’s/Middle Grade
Genre: Adventure/Fantasy
Size: 368 pages
Publisher: Candlewick
Release Date: September 25, 2012
ISBN: 978-0763632649
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: ARC from Amazon Vine
Rating: 4/5 stars

I got a copy of this book to review through the Amazon Vine program. This was a very cute book with some wonderful illustrations about a pirate bird named Blue Jay and his crew.

Blue Jay the Pirate is the most feared pirate of the skies and has a hankering for collecting beautiful eggs. When one of the eggs hatches to produce a gosling, things change for Blue Jay and his crew. Eventually Blue Jay and his crew find themselves allying with the sparrows from Briarloch to take out a gang of mean and vicious crows. Ends up Gabriel the gosling has a rather large role to play in it all.

This was a fun and cute story aimed at the younger age set. All the characters in the story are animals, mostly different types of birds. It is fun to watch how well the birds on the pirate ship work together, even during disagreements.

Gabriel is a great character, and although he doesn’t fit in and seems like a detriment to the pirating crew, in the end he figures out how to use his differences to help out his friends and save the day. This is a great message about learning to embrace your differences and make the best of them rather than try to be someone you’re not.

There are some great action scenes between the birds and the crows. Again it is fun to watch as the pirating birds and the landbound sparrows are able to set aside differences and unite to fight against a greater evil when the need is there.

This is a great adventure tale about friendship, teamwork, and embracing differences. The pictures throughout are beautiful and very well done. I read an advanced reading copy so they were all in black and white, but the final book is supposed to be in full color and I am eager to see this.

The book is aimed at a younger age set. As such the words used are fairly simple and the plot is very straightforward. I’d recommend for kids age 8+. Young adults and older might find the story a bit too simple to really be engaging.

Overall a cute and fun read with some beautiful illustrations. A great adventure story about friendship, teamwork, and embracing your differences. The plot and language is fairly simple; so I would recommend for kids who love pirates. Young adults and older will probably find the story too simple to be very engaging. Younger pirate fans though should be highly entertained.

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– 150+ Books Reading Challenge
– Debut Author Reading Challenge