This month's book reviews

A tongue-in-cheek pirate story
based on a popular movie script

You probably already know something about "The Pirates of the Caribbean," since the third movie in that series is now playing in theaters around the country. "Dead Man's Chest" is a paperback novel based on the script of that third movie. If you saw the movie, you might enjoy reading the story in book form. On the other hand, you might enjoy the movie more if you read the book first. Either way, pictures from the movie are bound in the middle of the book so that you can't ignore the screen characters.

The book begins by Captain Jack Sparrow, the wily pirate, escaping from prison. He had hidden in the coffin of a dead prisoner, which was thrown into the sea by the prison guards. Sparrow simply popped the top off of the coffin and used one of the leg bones of the dead man inside to row the coffin like a boat. His crew was waiting on the Pearl, his pirate ship, to pick him up.

Back in Port Royal, Elizabeth Swan and Will Turner are trying to get married. Elizabeth is in her wedding dress, but when the groom shows up, he is in chains and accompanied by soldiers. A new governor, Lord Cutler Beckett, has arrived with his royal commission and replaces Elizabeth's father as governor. Elizabeth finds that she too is under arrest. The charge is helping a convicted pirate to escape. Of course, the pirate is Jack Sparrow. The new governor is willing to lift the death sentence for the young couple but only if Will Turner agrees to track down Sparrow and return with his unusual compass. Elizabeth's freedom will be traded for the compass.

Just as in the movie, the plot twists and turns. A vast array of weird characters moves through the story. Davy Jones, with octopus tentacles for a beard, captains the Flying Dutchman and wants to capture Jack Sparrow and force him to live forever at the bottom of the sea. James Norrington, the former officer in the British Navy who had been disgraced and defeated earlier by Jack Sparrow, also shows up and is trying to make a life with the pirates. There is a skeletal monkey and a talking parrot. The Kraken, a sea monster that can pull entire ships under the waves, also plays a part.

We are kept guessing whether the beautiful Elizabeth and the brave Will Turner will ever be able to marry. Is Captain Jack Sparrow ever capable of doing the right and decent thing? And even if he is, can he ever escape Davy Jones and the Kraken?

A seventh grade girls tries to save
her little brother from a kidnapper

When Bonnie got out of her middle school classes she was supposed to go next door and pick up Matt, her little brother, from his kindergarten class. Much of the time they go home and pass a ball around since Matt is crazy about baseball. She is shocked one day when she goes to pick him up and he cannot be found. After checking around, Bonnie finds out that it appears little Matt had left school with a stranger disguised as a package-delivery man. Only later, when Bonnie goes home with her mother, do they find that their little dog, "Pookie," had also disappeared.

The reader knows from the very beginning that Matt has been kidnapped by his father, Denny Thurman, a gun-carrying petty criminal and habitual gambler. Pookie had been used to lure Matt into the car. The dog had then been abandoned at a rest stop in a local park. It took several days for Bonnie and her mother along with the police to assemble the clues that explained how Matt had been abducted. Even then, nobody wanted to believe he had been taken by his father, who had been divorced for years from Matt's mother. We read that Bonnie's father had died in an accident years before her mother had remarried.

The suspense part of the story begins when Bonnie goes with friends to a Seattle Mariner's baseball game and thinks that she spots Matt, even though his hair had been blackened with shoe polish. She recognizes her former step-dad behind the dark glasses he is wearing. When she sees Matt alone, she yells at him to come with her. Unfortunately, the kidnapper sees her trying to get away with Matt and he captures both of them at gunpoint. He forces them into his car and, later, onto a ferry boat. It becomes clear he intends to shoot Bonnie and let her body fall overboard. What can she do now to save both herself and her little brother?

"Abduction," by Peg Kehret, is a suspense novel that will have you not wanting to put it down until the last word is read.

Entering sixth grade in a middle school
presents a different world for girl