What an excellent story. The best things I liked about it were the wry, off-kilter humour and the elegant flow of the prose. Hughes seems to be the kind of writer who could write about anything and make it interesting. Of course, such a subject as human behaviour under extreme circumstances (usually) cannot fail to be riveting. I’m so glad I read it.

This book is about a group of English children who get kidnapped (although kidnapped isn’t really the best word) by pirates while travelling from Jamaica to England. I’ve read a review that described this book as a predecessor to “Lord of the Flies” because it doesn’t portray children as darling, lovable little angels, but rather as complex and puzzling and not altogether pleasant human beings. A good book, but also a bit disturbing, for reasons I cannot quite explain.