View source for Captain Firebeard's School for Pirates: The Sneaky Sweet Stealer by Chae Strathie and Anna Chernyshova

{{infobox
|title=Captain Firebeard's School for Pirates: The Sneaky Sweet Stealer
|author=Chae Strathie and Anna Chernyshova
|reviewer=John Lloyd
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=A welcome second book in this series, but one that doesn't quite match up to the delights of the first.
|rating=4
|buy=Yes
|borrow=Yes
|pages=204
|publisher=Scholastic
|date=August 2017
|isbn=9781407163406
|website=
|video=
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140716340X</amazonuk>
}}
 
The ''Rusty Barnacle'' is set to sail again, with a second term for the wannabe pirates and their teachers and crew.  Tommy, despite being late, is the keenest pupil there – after all, he has great friends, enemies he can easily vanquish, and a very good novice parrot for company.  But everyone on board has reason for concern when they set sail – the prize sweets from the tuck shop are going missing in great quantities.  Who could possibly be behind this mystery?
 
I said in my review of [[Captain Firebeard's School for Pirates by Chae Strathie and Anna Chernyshova|the first book]] that there wasn't a huge amount of surprise in store for anyone, and I don't think there will be too many readers finding much surprise here, either.  OK, I'll admit this book is for the under-nines, but even so – the way a certain something is set-up is rather blatant, and as a result the drama can feel a little lacking.  That said, it is certainly on the interesting side for the target audience, and Tommy, Jo the roustabout girl pirate, and Milton the scaredy-cat PoC one, are definitely likeable enough to justify more than one reading.
 
What's more, there is no small amount of invention in the verbal presentation – the text isn't all pirate cliché, but just the right amount, and the many sweet and chocolate names found in the tuck shop would defeat many a lesser author.  What I did find disappointing, in the light of what I remembered of the first book, was that the presentation was black and white, when we had colour last time.  Yes, just one colour – the vivid orange shade similar to the hairs belonging to the training ship's Captain Firebeard – but it really made the book stand out.  Here, despite the multitude of different fonts, and breaking-out into '''LARGE BOLD BITS''' for little reason, it looks a little too, well, ordinary.
 
Still, ordinary can still be better than satisfactory, and so is this.  There is a brio and vim to the telling, and it remains a perfectly decent story, set in an enjoyable – and ever-expanding – pirate world.  It's definitely term two, but completely self-contained, so they could still be read in any order.  I wish it well in the marketplace, for it deserves an audience, which I hope it gets even while in black and white.  If not, then the colour-thief should spend some time with a Jagsnaggler.
 
I must thank the publishers for my review copy.
 
The same audience will probably enjoy [[The Demon Headmaster: Total Control by Gillian Cross]] which acts as a reboot of that older, but ever sprightly, series.
 
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[[Category:Chae Strathie]]
[[Category:Anna Chernyshova]]
[[Category:Emerging Readers]]