The Black Banner eBook Helen Hart
Download As PDF : The Black Banner eBook Helen Hart 
Set sail on the high seas of adventure with Becky Baxter and her band of pirates! A swashbuckling pirate novel for young teens. Penniless Becky Baxter crops her hair, dresses in breeches, and leaves the dangerous backstreets of Bristol for a life of adventure and fortune on the high seas. But she quickly discovers that there are far more dangerous enemies than her drunken Ma and evil Mr Crudder… Pirates!
The Black Banner eBook Helen Hart
From That's All She Read at [...]Becky Baxter seizes a chance opportunity to escape her drunken mother and threat of sexual servitude to her mother's unsavory friend to take a ship bound from Bristol to the New World. Of course to do this she must masquerade as a boy named Billy. On the ship the cook stumbles across Billy's secret and seeks to take advantage of it when out of the salty blue come pirates, Captain Logan Corder and his band of mostly nice guy cutthroats. It's a pirate ship and Billy, along with other crew, are given the chance to join them or die. This begins Billy's education into piracy, a swashbuckling adventure. She grows to respect Logan and the other pirates, the more so when they moor at Paradise Island, a settlement of pirates from numerous ships and their women. Billy learns to use weapons and participates as a boarder in several captures of ships. As usually happens in these "grrlz2men" stories she learns also to enjoy the freedom of pants and lack of restrictions on her life.
Ironically when the notorious and quite historical pirate Mary Read comes onto the scene that all seems to change. Reed's own story parallels Billy's, having been a crewmember on a ship taken by pirates who accept the pirate offer to join them. Calico Jack Rackham is the pirate captain who also has aboard ship Anne Bonney, who dresses and acts like a man but does not herself conceal her gender. Mary tells Billy about how Anne, becoming entranced of "Mark Read" tries to kiss him, forcing Mary to say, in essence, "I'm a girl, so you can't kiss me." Mary sews a beautiful petticoat with her own piratical hands and tells Billy to wear it to remind herself that she is a girl. When Logan happens to walk in on her while she is doing the "I enjoy being a girl" bit, the jig is up and Billy returns to being Becky.
That is when a book full of dash and daring do gets murky for me. Typically Becky should take what she has learned about how being a girl doesn't mean you can't leap from ship to ship on a rope and wield a cutlass and stab people like any boy. Instead she seems to revert to a sort of passivity. It's not that Logan and the rest starting to treat her like a girl but that Becky accepts the coddling and, as far as I could tell, is content to be the responsibility of other people. The book lost some of its strength to me with that regression.
The Black Banner follows history rather well; showing how stricter enforcement of anti-piracy laws brings the era of romantic piracy to an end. Rackham is tried and executed, Bonney and Reed imprisoned, and back at a much-reduced Paradise Island community Corder decides to sail for home. Coming in to land near where hiss brother's farm lies, the ship wrecks on rocks, and Logan Corder is captured. Finding Logan's family Becky joins them in trying to find a way to free Logan from hanging. A happy ending complete with a marriage keeps the novel from ending on a grim note. Unfortunately Becky's minimal activity in these final sequences just cements my sense that she learned nothing but how to take care of others. Perhaps the author wanted her to become a more appropriate little girl.
With pirate stories these days you have two choices, to be realistic about the savagery of pirates or to say to heck with anything but a fun, dashing story and make them romantic and appealing. The Black Banner teeters in an effort to create a balance, Logan trying to stand for some sort of chivalric piratical ideal, offering democracy to his me, treating women gallantly, only killing those who resist being captured, and more of that sort of moral ambiguity. This takes more than a little willingness to equivocate and blur the edges of morality. Had the author made Logan less of a swashbuckling hero this could have just almost worked? Instead it felt like the standard tacking on an overlay of modern sensibilities onto another age.
The best things about this novel are its numerous colorful and endearing characters, both pirates and honest folk, its fidelity to the history of the time, and its willingness to at least approach gritty realities about death and desperation. If you can just relax and overlook the ambiguities and Becky's failure to have her lessons from being a boy stick, you will have a rip roaring good adventure.
The Black Banner is available in paperback as well as on Kindle. The publisher offered me a review copy but I chose to purchase it myself. I also, by the way, bought a copy for my neighborhood kids' reading program.
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The Black Banner eBook Helen Hart Reviews
If you are looking for a good alternative to zombies and vampires for your YA reader, The Black Banner is an excellent choice. It's a rollicking, swashbuckling romp through a tale that also remains very true to history. Set in the 1700's when piracy was rampant, the author brings to life the action on board ship as well as on land through her attention to detail and obvious knowledge of the world at that time.
Becky Baxter runs away from an abusive life at home around the age of thirteen. She's not really certain about that herself. Disguising herself as a boy, thus becoming Billy Baxter, she signs up as a dab hand with eleven other crew on a ship bound for the Windward Isles from Bristol, England. When the voyage is interrupted by a pirate attack, Billy chooses to join them rather than be killed.
The action is non-stop and exciting with believable and colourful characters, many of which are extremely likable. The story touches on gender issues and the moral conflicts Becky/Billy faces as she matures during this time. Intrigue, passion (for life, not lust), suspense and romance keep the reader engaged from beginning to end. In fact, definitely not a YA reader, I found it to be great fun!
I bought this book a while ago now for my niece but accidently forgot to give it to her for her birthday mainly because when it arrived I wanted to read it myself. As it is aimed for the teen and young adult market though (a fact I didn’t appreciate at the time) I might just hang onto it for a couple of years as my niece is only ten.
This is the sort of story I would have luxuriated in as a young tomboy of a teen, when I had time to fill and can remember whole days where I’d shut myself away with a book, lost for hours and taken completely into another world. If only I’d appreciated that luxury at the time! This is one of those books that would have stayed with me, it has stayed with me now even though I’m a little over its target audience age.
This story is set in 1719, a time when pirates plagued the seas, preying on the merchant ships of the Caribbean. Becky Baxter leaves her drunken Ma and the evil Mr Crudder behind in Bristol, cuts her hair, and changes her dress for breeches before calling herself Billy and taking to the seas on the Bonny Marie. She is soon to come across pirates who sail under the black banner, which came before the more traditional skull and crossbones, and as entire crews are condemned to die beneath a cutlass blade unless they swear allegiance to the black banner what is to become of the crew she has sailed with so far?
“There was a moment of horror as the Portuguese sailor’s eyes bulged and I felt him go slack. He was down. Someone cheered nearby and gripped my shirt, propelling me on into the fray. Musket shot whistled past and chewed up the deck timbers. Cutlasses clashed and recoiled. My nostrils prickled with the stench of grenades and gunpowder. Reeling, I staggered up onto the quarterdeck of the Sao Silvestre just as the plea came for Quarter.
Rapturous shouts filtered up into the rigging. Scorching sun beat down on my head. I stood still in the midst of the cheering crowd and gazed at my hands. There was blood on my blade and up my wrist. But I’d had my first fight - and won!”
This tale is written as a series of diary entries in Becky’s journal which works very well. The writing is tight and graphic and the story is paced perfectly. Hart has done a very good job of depicting her characters and as so often happens in fiction we are drawn to the pirates, willing for them to survive...and not all of them do. If I was to be really, really picky there is one reveal which I wish could have been drawn out a little longer but that’s just a personal thing and took nothing away from the story. I don’t know that much about the history of this time but as this book was written in association with The Long John Silver Trust I feel confident in the authenticity of the details.
This is a terrific book for all those who like well written action and adventure with great characters and an emotionally realistic storyline.
I'm not a fan of YA, but I can see where this book would have great appeal to young girls - the romance of being a pirate, the adventure of disguising yourself to go to sea and the joy of finding a defender. I know nothing of boats and sailing, but the author obviously does as the detail is authentic. The story moves quickly and holds the reader's attention. Well done! PS The ending will satisfy any young girl's romantic sensibilities.
From That's All She Read at [...]
Becky Baxter seizes a chance opportunity to escape her drunken mother and threat of sexual servitude to her mother's unsavory friend to take a ship bound from Bristol to the New World. Of course to do this she must masquerade as a boy named Billy. On the ship the cook stumbles across Billy's secret and seeks to take advantage of it when out of the salty blue come pirates, Captain Logan Corder and his band of mostly nice guy cutthroats. It's a pirate ship and Billy, along with other crew, are given the chance to join them or die. This begins Billy's education into piracy, a swashbuckling adventure. She grows to respect Logan and the other pirates, the more so when they moor at Paradise Island, a settlement of pirates from numerous ships and their women. Billy learns to use weapons and participates as a boarder in several captures of ships. As usually happens in these "grrlz2men" stories she learns also to enjoy the freedom of pants and lack of restrictions on her life.
Ironically when the notorious and quite historical pirate Mary Read comes onto the scene that all seems to change. Reed's own story parallels Billy's, having been a crewmember on a ship taken by pirates who accept the pirate offer to join them. Calico Jack Rackham is the pirate captain who also has aboard ship Anne Bonney, who dresses and acts like a man but does not herself conceal her gender. Mary tells Billy about how Anne, becoming entranced of "Mark Read" tries to kiss him, forcing Mary to say, in essence, "I'm a girl, so you can't kiss me." Mary sews a beautiful petticoat with her own piratical hands and tells Billy to wear it to remind herself that she is a girl. When Logan happens to walk in on her while she is doing the "I enjoy being a girl" bit, the jig is up and Billy returns to being Becky.
That is when a book full of dash and daring do gets murky for me. Typically Becky should take what she has learned about how being a girl doesn't mean you can't leap from ship to ship on a rope and wield a cutlass and stab people like any boy. Instead she seems to revert to a sort of passivity. It's not that Logan and the rest starting to treat her like a girl but that Becky accepts the coddling and, as far as I could tell, is content to be the responsibility of other people. The book lost some of its strength to me with that regression.
The Black Banner follows history rather well; showing how stricter enforcement of anti-piracy laws brings the era of romantic piracy to an end. Rackham is tried and executed, Bonney and Reed imprisoned, and back at a much-reduced Paradise Island community Corder decides to sail for home. Coming in to land near where hiss brother's farm lies, the ship wrecks on rocks, and Logan Corder is captured. Finding Logan's family Becky joins them in trying to find a way to free Logan from hanging. A happy ending complete with a marriage keeps the novel from ending on a grim note. Unfortunately Becky's minimal activity in these final sequences just cements my sense that she learned nothing but how to take care of others. Perhaps the author wanted her to become a more appropriate little girl.
With pirate stories these days you have two choices, to be realistic about the savagery of pirates or to say to heck with anything but a fun, dashing story and make them romantic and appealing. The Black Banner teeters in an effort to create a balance, Logan trying to stand for some sort of chivalric piratical ideal, offering democracy to his me, treating women gallantly, only killing those who resist being captured, and more of that sort of moral ambiguity. This takes more than a little willingness to equivocate and blur the edges of morality. Had the author made Logan less of a swashbuckling hero this could have just almost worked? Instead it felt like the standard tacking on an overlay of modern sensibilities onto another age.
The best things about this novel are its numerous colorful and endearing characters, both pirates and honest folk, its fidelity to the history of the time, and its willingness to at least approach gritty realities about death and desperation. If you can just relax and overlook the ambiguities and Becky's failure to have her lessons from being a boy stick, you will have a rip roaring good adventure.
The Black Banner is available in paperback as well as on . The publisher offered me a review copy but I chose to purchase it myself. I also, by the way, bought a copy for my neighborhood kids' reading program.
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