This was a disappointment. There was some interesting world building, but the story and writing felt forced. ( )

"Wind In The Willows" meets pirate story. Characters talking animals, 'sailing' on a flying ship (detail cutaway dwg), flying the Jolly Robin.

Birds good, other critters bad generaly. Crow character = "...Henry recognized him; Bellamy was part of a notorious gang of crows that plagued Briarloch... ...led by the infamous Teach.
Quotes: pg 22, Poppa Fox leaned on his switch and squinted into the brambles. "WHAT THE HECK 'N' HELL IS GOING ON IN HERE?" he growled.

I almost gave up on this book at about chapter 5 and then I read some very favourable reviews and decided to push on. It became much more interesting and I ended up enjoying the book. The characters are each unique and add variety to the story. You end up cheering on Blue Jay and his friends as they battle the crows. My favourite characters were the sparrows and the mole. I will pass this along to my son's elementary / junior high school so that children can enjoy this charming novel. The illustrations are wonderful. I am not sure what age group this is really aimed at. My 13 year old was not interested because the idea of pirate birds seemed too young but the vocabulary seemed to be too much for a 9 year old. ( )

Captain Blue Jay the Pirate enjoys a fearsome reputation and a greed for treasure - in particular, eggs. But when he rescues an especially large egg from a raccoon, he and his crew end up with more than they bargained for when it hatches. It turns out to be a baby goose, which not only eats more than any of the rest of them but will eventually be larger than their ship, the Grosbeak. But Jay defends Gabriel the goose, saying someday he'll repay their friendship.

The idea for the story is interesting - birds as pirates. (After all I thought, I loved Watership Down, so why not?) And Scott Nash has created quite an interesting world where different species of birds form communities of farmers (sparrows), soldiers (thrushes), or pirates (crows, or other outcasts in the case of the ship Grosbeak). And there seems to be a substantial amount of back-story that went into the writing of this one, giving the idea that there's some real potential. Unfortunately, the story never really takes flight. There's no real central character here - not Jay, not Junco, not Gabriel - to really draw in the reader with a hero (and I was never certain if Jay was a good guy or not). It's clever the way the birds are worked into the story (and the main crow villain is named Teach, like Blackbeard), but the story just seemed flat to me.

The illustrations, however, are great and there are a lot of them. I'm not sure that's enough to hook many young readers who'll have to wade through half the book before it starts to get interesting. I'm also a little concerned about the intended audience. It says 8-11 years old, but parents will want to know that there's plenty of violence - just like pirates in real life. ( )

Captain Blue Jay the Pirate enjoys a fearsome reputation and a greed for treasure - in particular, eggs. But when he rescues an especially large egg from a raccoon, he and his crew end up with more than they bargained for when it hatches. It turns out to be a baby goose, which not only eats more than any of the rest of them but will eventually be larger than their ship, the Grosbeak. But Jay defends Gabriel the goose, saying someday he'll repay their friendship.

The idea for the story is interesting - birds as pirates. (After all I thought, I loved Watership Down, so why not?) And Scott Nash has created quite an interesting world where different species of birds form communities of farmers (sparrows), soldiers (thrushes), or pirates (crows, or other outcasts in the case of the ship Grosbeak). And there seems to be a substantial amount of back-story that went into the writing of this one, giving the idea that there's some real potential. Unfortunately, the story never really takes flight. There's no real central character here - not Jay, not Junco, not Gabriel - to really draw in the reader with a hero (and I was never certain if Jay was a good guy or not). It's clever the way the birds are worked into the story (and the main crow villain is named Teach, like Blackbeard), but the story just seemed flat to me.

The illustrations, however, are great and there are a lot of them. I'm not sure that's enough to hook many young readers who'll have to wade through half the book before it starts to get interesting. I'm also a little concerned about the intended audience. It says 8-11 years old, but parents will want to know that there's plenty of violence - just like pirates in real life. ( )