About The Book:
A daring mission, a sister turned pirate and a sea full of secrets…
In a world of water where land is a legend, 11-year-old Kittiwake Stormhaven dreams of adventure aboard the Amazon Princess. When a vital mission takes the ship into dangerous waters, Kittiwake discovers shocking news – her long-lost sister, Petrel, is now a feared pirate queen.
Kittiwake must outsmart pirates, outmanoeuvre storms and face ghostly captains to save her ship, her mischievous monkey Caboodle and her friends. But in a high-stakes showdown, family loyalty collides with survival, and Kittiwake learns the ocean hides more secrets than she ever imagined.
Kittiwake Stormhaven is a fast-paced, sea-swept adventure filled with daring rescues, thrilling discoveries and the magic of friendship.
My Review:
A new book by Victoria Williamson is always a treat. A swashbuckling adventure on the high seas sounded just the kind of thing I needed to blow the cobwebs from my mind on a cold and wet day.
Eleven-year-old Kittiwake Stormhaven lives on the Amazon Princess, a floating city ship that is one of the four heavily armed ships tasked with protecting the other ships from marauding pirates. A meteor storm brought Marinium, a new super fuel, which unfortunately melted the ice caps and drowned the world, apart from a few surviving rocky peaks that manage to poke above the oceans. The survivors built huge ships powered by Marinium, which has enough energy in a tiny speck to fuel a ship for a decade.
Kittiwake spends most of her time playing with her mischievous monkey, Caboodle (Kit and Caboodle – get it), and hanging out with her best friend, and stowaway, Scally.
A mission to find a new Marinium meteor before the pirates get it results in Caboodle being kidnapped, Scally being imprisoned, and Kittiwake reeling from family secrets revealed. Perhaps she will be able to save her friends with the help of her birthday gift from Scally. The pirate’s portolano, a book filled with secret pirate knowledge.
My favourite character was Scally. Branded for being a pirate with a large P on his forehead, he has to keep hidden onboard the Amazon Princess to avoid being arrested by the authorities. His unfortunate start in life makes him an immediately sympathetic character. His loyalty to Kittiwake, his talent at making things, and his constant malapropisms ensure he is the heart of the book.
Kittiwake is likable enough, although devoid of the usual depth and nuance that are the trademark of Williamson’s characters.
The book is full of suitably nasty pirates and a troupe of ridiculously silly adults on the Amazon Princess, which is sure to please the book’s young, intended audience.
Williamson is an excellent writer and her prose zips along at a rate of knots. While I found some of the action scenes a little difficult to imagine, there is plenty of silly creatures, play on words, and pirate skulduggery that is bound to delight younger readers.
The theme that stood out for me in this book was not to judge people by appearances. Kittiwake knows pirates are evil, but her best friend is a pirate! There are a few times within the book when Kittiwake is about to affirm her prejudices about pirates, and then she thinks of Scally or sees his reaction to her words. While there are definitely evil pirates in this book, it is good that Kittiwake can see that not everyone branded as a pirate is necessarily cutthroat.
The setting is extremely interesting. I would loved to have learned more about how humanity survived on the ships, the different kind of ships there were, and even what life was like on Kittiwake’s city ship. Were there schools and shops and different places to eat? Unfortunately, we see very little of what life is like on the Amazon Princess, save for Captain Mollymawk Stormhaven (Kittiwake’s mother), her first mate Archer Finnigan, the chief engineer Amethyst Kyle, the corpulent cook Madame Wurzelwick, the germophobic Doctor Elango Gobin, and the absentminded Professor Isinglass.
However, younger readers will be too engrossed in the fun to worry about such things as whether there are agriculture ships to grow the wheat and collect the honey that the characters are often eating in their cakes.
The structure of the book reminded me of Williamson’s previous book from Tiny Tree, “Skyfleet -March of the Mutabugs”, in that the narrative is frequently broken up by excerpts from the Pirate’s Portolano. These excerpts concern the different ships and ports important to the story, accompanied by beautiful illustrations by James Brown. I found the printing of the illustrations in the paperback to be so dark that they ruined a lot of the detail of the illustrations. The quality of the pictures in the ebook are much superior.
The pace is fast, with several jumps between chapters that were so sudden I kept skipping back through the pages to see if I’d missed something. There is also some repetition with Kittiwake being surprised to discover the same family secret several times throughout the book, but perhaps children need important information repeated to make up for short attention spans.
With such a fun book, where the humour is often silly bordering on the absurd, it is not surprising that it doesn’t pack a lot of emotional heft. That is not the purpose of the book. However, there is some intrigue over Kittiwake’s missing sister and father. I would have liked some sort of resolution to this issue at the end of the book, or at least a greater emotional payoff than was provided, but perhaps this mystery is being held back for a sequel.
If I were still teaching speech and drama to children, I would love to give this book to my students. With lots of movement and action in each scene, and numerous characters with intriguing accents, it would make an excellent script for performing or reading aloud.
For adult readers, despite its interesting premise, it is a little too light on world building and characters to be a truly satisfying read. However, it will be a delight for reading to the kiddoes at bedtime.
Once again Williamson shows her versatility by writing a book quite unlike any of her others. Fans of Dahl and Walliams are sure to lap this up.
There is a lot of imagination in this book. Scally is an endearing character. I loved Inkpot the Night Glider albatross. As an adult, I wished that it had been aimed at a slightly older audience so that I could sink my teeth into the world and the characters. However, for the appropriate age group it is a treat, and I can see lots of children dressing as Kittiwake Stormhaven for World Book Day in the future.
About The Author:
Victoria Williamson is an award-winning author from Glasgow, Scotland, who loved reading books and writing adventure stories from an early age. After studying Physics at the University of Glasgow, she set out on her own real-life adventures, which included teaching maths and science in Cameroon, training teachers in Malawi, teaching English in China and working with children with additional support needs in the UK.
Her previous novels include The Fox Girl and the White Gazelle, The Boy with the Butterfly Mind, Hag Storm, War of the Wind, The Pawnshop of Stolen Dreams, Norah’s Ark, The Whistlers in the Dark, Feast of Ashes, and Skyfleet: March of the Mutabugs. Her books have won the RED Book Award 2024, YA-aldi Glasgow Secondary School Libraries Book Award 2023 and the Bolton Children’s Fiction Award 2020/2021, and have been short-listed and long-listed for numerous other awards. War of the Wind and Norah’s Ark were also both nominated for the 2024 Yoto Carnegie Medals.
Victoria writes and edits Key Stage 2 books for the education company Twinkl. She spends the rest of her time writing novels and visiting schools, libraries and literary festivals to give author talks and run creative writing workshops. Her latest novel, Kittiwake Stormhaven and the Pirate’s Portolano, channels her love of pirates and swashbuckling adventure to create a steampunk world set on the seven seas, and is illustrated by the very talented James Brown.
You can find out more about Victoria’s books, school visits and free resources for schools on her website: www.strangelymagical.com
Leave a Reply