This book from Queen of Swords Press had been on my radar for a little while, but when I heard it was appropriate for middle grade and up, I hopped off the fence and bought it immediately. It wasn't on the story time shelf for long before my youngest picked it out (he was eleven at the time), and friends, it was a hit! We all appreciated that while these stories had stakes, they were never GRIM. We read a lot of fantasy adventure for story time and a LOT of it gets very dark. This is not. As the one reading this out loud, I appreciated that I got to do pirate voices, but not have to figure out twelve distinct pirate voices! There was also the diva, the queen, the merman, the spy, etc. And the opportunities to talk about gender! And the cast of capybaras and chinchillas and cats and rats and mer and kraken and stars and fae!

But my FAVORITE part was that it was a world where the main character could be lesbian and polyamorous and and it was just JOYFUL. There was no overcoming societal bullshit or strife or homophobia at all. These stories are incredibly important, too, but it is also SO GOOD to live in a world for a while where it just isn't necessary.

There is one character who comes out as trans, and ONE CHARACTER who is kind of shitty about it, but their entire pirate family is incredibly supportive of his identity and works to protect him from the other person, who is definitely portrayed as misguided and judgmental, and not representative of society at large.

I could go on and on, but I will wrap up by saying this: when we finished the book, we were talking about how refreshing it was to read a fantasy adventure book that was so joyful and cheerful all the way through, and my youngest son pronounced it the most cheerful adventure story ever written! ( )

This book is ridiculous, and I love that. The concept is wonderful— I mean, why not have a lesbian capybara pirate as a main character? And I really appreciated the forward that is about embracing joy. Things I wasn’t quite as enraptured with — wasn’t expecting short stories (it worked, but I was expecting something of a bigger narrative arc). Also, I appreciate the wild imagination at play, but there were times that the writing was difficult to follow. On the whole though, exactly as weird and delightful as promised. ( )

I think people (especially young teens) who want and need this kind of thing would love this book. It's not hitting my particular needs so the whimsy fell flat. And as from the first chapter I expected a "learning how to be a pirate" story (like the Paksennarion or any given MilSF story arc) I was brought up short to discover we skipped over all that in the blank page in front of chapter 2 and the rest of the book was a series of one-off adventures. Beautifully and joyfully written, just not for me. ( )