The Influence of the Pirates in Peter Pan and Treasure Island
on Contemporary Picture Books
Patricia M. Kirtley
Vermont College of Fine Arts
Introduction
Most of us will never meet any pirates, and yet we know, or we think we know,
exactly what they looked like. We learned about them when we were children (Cordingly xiii).
The pirate characters created by Robert Louis Stevenson and J.M. Barrie, though bearing little resemblance to actual pirates, have consumed popular imagination and their influence is felt even today in children’s picture book fiction.
This paper researches the actual history of piracy in order to determine what type of people these gentlemen of fortune really were, and explores ways in which Long John Silver and Captain Hook may or may not epitomize their historical counterparts. It also examines the themes in Treasure Island and Peter Pan, before focusing on similarities between the pirates in these two classic texts and contemporary picture books.
Bandits at Sea
In reality these seemingly romantic characters were often ruthless killers and their
lives were nasty, brutish, and short (Konstam 6).
It is important to assess the actual character of pirates because these colorful bandits are attractive heroes in children’s literature. Armed robbery at sea existed in Greek and Roman times, but the great age of piracy in the western world began in the 1650’s and ended in 1725, when the British Royal Navy captured and hung most of the pirates. Pirates were the terrorists of the eighteenth century. They boasted no particular national affiliation and their lawless pursuit of treasure was their unifying principle. They used their reputation for gruesome violence to intimidate their victims into immediate capitulation.
Few reliable printed accounts of pirates exist, with the exception of court records and newspaper articles. Dutch author Alexander Exquemelin wrote one of the first books about pirates, The Buccaneers of America, in 1678. Historian Angus Konstam verifies that Exquemelin served as a ship’s surgeon under buccaneer Henry Morgan in the seventeenth century (Konstam 12). This afforded Exquemelin the opportunity to observe the bloody atrocities perpetrated by pirates such as twisting cords around prisoners’ heads until their eyes burst out of their skulls (qtd. in Cordingly 131).
Captain Charles Johnson wrote the most widely accepted historical book about piracy, A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates in 1724. Johnson describes one of the most notorious brigands, Edward Teach, also known as Blackbeard, who often frequented the coastline of North Carolina and Virginia.
Curator David Cordingly organized an exhibition in 1992 at the Greenwich National Maritime Museum titled “Pirates: Fact and Fiction.” The exhibit remained for three years and led Cordingly to publish the erudite, well-organized reference book, Under the Black Flag(1995) in which he describes the harsh and brutal life of all seamen during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Some pirates distinguished themselves as extremely barbaric in a world where cruelty was commonplace. A confirmation of this violence appears in The History of Pirates by Angus Konstam who held the position of Curator of Arms and Armor at the Tower of London and later Chief Curator at the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum in Key West.
C.R. Pennell edited a collection of sixteen essays in Bandits at Sea(2001) by thirteen prominent academic historians. These excellent comprehensive essays cover a variety of topics including piracy in the fourteenth century, homosexuality, racial diversity in the pirate community, and women pirates. Pennell corroborates that many pirate captains were vicious and sadistic. He describes how Edward Low routinely amused himself by slicing off the ears of the captain of a captured ship and making the captive eat them. Low generously offered salt and pepper (Pennell10).
In order to maintain some semblance of order on a pirate ship, each member of the crew agreed to the terms of a Pirate Code that regulated activities aboard ship. This code, spoofed in the third Pirates of the Caribbean film with Johnny Depp and the Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards, was a unique, egalitarian approach to personnel management (Pirates).
Bartholomew Roberts’ code included equal voting rights for every member of the crew and equitable sharing in prizes, with a small additional share for officers. The code strictly forbad women or boys on board as well as gambling, fighting, desertion, or stealing while in service to the ship. It required the careful maintenance of weapons, lights out at eight o’clock in the evening and offered compensation for anyone crippled in battle (Konstam 186-7).
Clearly, actual pirates were not attractive or even acceptable subjects for children’s literature. Pirates left few written records, allowing authors and historians to create the pirate persona of monster, rogue, criminal, and hero. What better example than the archetypical pirate leader in Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island?
The Hook and the Cook
Long John Silver is better known than any of the real pirates of history and, together with Captain Hook,
has come to represent many people’s image of a pirate (Cordingly 5).
Long John Silver and Captain Hook define piracy for many adults and children. These fictional pirates do not represent the reality of piracy. They present a romanticized notion of pirates for very young children.
Stevenson – On a rainy summer day in Scotland in 1881, Robert Louis Stevenson drew a pirate’s treasure map to amuse his stepson, Lloyd Osborne. A story took shape in his mind as he filled in the topography. Young Folks Magazine serialized the original text of Treasure Island, as The Sea Cook, from October 1881 to January 1882 under Stevenson’s pseudonym, Captain George North (McCulloch 68). Stevenson never met a real pirate, yet he created a romantic composite that became a commonly accepted character in literature.
Stevenson found his inspiration in W.E. Henley, his friend and editor who had an amputated foot. In Treasure Island Long John Silver, the old sailor with one leg and a parrot on his shoulder, comes down to the docks to smell the salt air. Cordingly documents several cases of amputations at sea for injured sailors and verifies that the Royal Navy often selected the cook from among disabled seamen (8).
It is not unusual for seamen to sustain serious injuries resulting in amputations. The fact that Silver overcomes his disability is a tribute to his audacity as well as his strength of character. Stevenson describes Silver, “His left leg was cut off close by the hip, and under the left shoulder he carried a crutch” (66). Eventually artists portrayed Silver with a wooden leg. Modern pirate picture books often represent at least one pirate in this manner as well as one with a metal hook for an arm.
Silver named his pet parrot Cap’n Flint. Children’s author Richard Platt, who wrote the non-fiction book Eyewitness Piratefor Dorling Kindersley, insisted that no evidence exists that pirates kept parrots (65). In rebuttal, Cordingly discovered several advertisements for bright colored, talking parrots in a September 1717 London newspaper, The Post Man(9). He theorized that pirates brought parrots to sell or used them to bribe officials.
Stevenson introduces Silver as a respectable innkeeper, “plain and pale, but intelligent and smiling . . . whistling as he moved about the tables” (60). The main character and narrator, Jim Hawkins, needs an adult male role model since he recently lost his father. Silver treats Jim as a young apprentice and captures his affections in a walk along the quays. He teaches Jim about the rigging on cargo ships, tells stories, and explains nautical terms, as a father would instruct his son. Jim views Silver as a person of courage, concern, and daring declaring, “I began to see that here was one of the best possible shipmates” (Stevenson 71).
Even after the terrible conversation later overheard in the apple barrel and the sickening murder on the beach, the reader still believes that this paternal ruffian exhibits a great deal of good. Silver makes a selfish bargain with Jim to “save Long John from swinging” (Stevenson 244), but only after he risks his own life to save the boy.
In Robert Louis Stevenson and His World(1973), Scottish literary historian David Daichesdiscusses the moral ambiguity in Treasure Island, “The hero is really the villain, Long John Silver…and what is, superficially at least, admirable, is not always what is right” (56). The reader knows that the pirate is not in the least trustworthy. Yet, Silver genuinely likes Jim and does not wish to hurt him.
The author replaces Jim’s intimidated and recently deceased innkeeper father with a former seaman who manages an inn with conviviality and dominance. The sea cook regales Jim with tales of daring sea voyages. “It is Silver’s command of language and his self-control that order his charm and channel his greed” (Riach 188). The pirate leader provides an example for Jim to develop his own willpower and ingenuity in combating an evil mutiny. The boy initiates mature and independent behavior when he leaves the fort and sails the tiny coracle back to recover the Hispaniola.
Robert Louis Stevenson’s Long John Silver is a violent man who plots a mutiny and murders a fellow crewman. He is also charismatic and clever. He always chooses the winning side with no regrets for his previous allegiances. When threatened, he is at his best in finding the most advantageous solution for his personal advancement.
Perhaps the cruelest bequest Silver gives Jim Hawkins is the moral ambiguity so prominent in Stevenson’s novel. Jim begins the novel as a frightened young boy who has nightmares when Billy Bones pays him to watch for a one-legged man. As Jim experiences the influence of greed upon both the traditional adults and the pirates, he becomes accustomed to the idea of evil.
In spite of Long John Silver’s opportunistic approach to piracy, the reader knows that he respects Jim Hawkins. He saves the boy’s life and fills a void left by the loss of Jim’s father. Silver even compliments Jim’s eagerness to learn by saying that the boy reminds him of himself when he was young. Regardless of his callous nature, Silver exhibits a frank respect for the boy’s courage and resourcefulness.
After Silver turns against his cohorts, the marooned pirate Ben Gunn allows Silver to depart with a bag of coins to a port in Spanish America and the reader relishes the escape of this colorful and duplicitous gentleman of fortune. Robert Louis Stevenson gave us a terrible, conniving, corrupt, and likable pirate.
The primary theme in Stevenson’s novel is Jim Hawkins’ yearning for adventure and his desire to make mature, independent decisions. Stevenson presents the boy with a series of tests to prove his manhood. Jim searches the dead body of Billy Bones for the key to his locked sea chest, relates the threat of mutiny to the captain and sneaks off the ship to spy on the pirate crewmen. Each ordeal requires more courage until Jim kills Israel Hands to save his own life. Ultimately Jim stands up to the pirates and dares them to murder him.
The secondary theme is Jim’s search for a heroic role model after he loses his own father. Jim initially respects the squire and Dr. Livesey for their social position and education; however, he soon discovers that they are dull and uninteresting associates. The young boy immediately likes and respects Long John Silver though the pirate is a violent and greedy man.
Lastly, Jim encounters the folly of greed that lures both the pirates and the squire’s cohorts. The treasure map is the sinister invitation to adventure and untold fortune. The overpowering desire for riches reduces the squire and Dr. Livesey to silliness when they dream of playing childhood games in the treasure trove. Ben Gunn has gone mad living alone for months with the cache of plunder. Silver and gold proved worthless compared to the simple kindness of social interchange.
The illustrations in Treasure Island had a significant impact on the public perception of pirates. N.C. Wyeth, who illustrated the original 1911 edition of Treasure Island,made a strong artistic contribution to the romanticized concept of piracy, when he graphically depicted the savagery and loneliness of buccaneer life.
Wyeth’s fourteen full color paintings are dark and intense, symbolizing the apprehension in the text. Using Stevenson’s text as his reference (73), Wyeth also initiated the addition of earrings to the powerful seamen in his paintings, though there is no historical evidence that pirates wore such jewelry.
Barrie – Twenty years after the publication of Stevenson’s successful novel another Scotsman created a colorful and duplicitous pirate figure in children’s literature. Barrie’s house bordered Kensington Gardens where he told adventure stories to Arthur and Sylvia Llewellyn Davies’ boys. One tale of a boy who never grew up featured a pack of lost boys, Indians, mermaids, tiny fairies, assorted wild beasts, and a band of pirates headed by Captain Hook.
On December 27, 1904, Barrie’s dramatic production of Peter Pan, patterned on a pantomime, opened on a London stage.The pantomime is a British theatrical tradition, a musical comedy performance for children performed during the Christmas holidays.
According to playwright and actor Norman Robbins, British panto includes “silly songs, tongue-twisting titles, crass commercialism, and audience participation such as you’ve never seen (Robbins 6). Barrie followed the strict casting and staging requirements, yet he omitted the customary burlesque and ribald humor to present the play as children’s theater.
Barrie subsequently wrote the book Peter Pan in 1911. His pirate crewmembers appear as caricatures rather than characters. Barrie warns, “A more villainous-looking lot never hung in a row on Execution dock” (75). Yet, this unsavory crew in no way seriously frightens young readers. Children love Smee, the bespectacled, unpretentious, bumbling boatswain who hums while he sews and longs to know the meaning of the word “mother.” Barrie describes Smee as pathetic and commonplace (183), a perfect foil for Hook, the embodiment of snobbery and aristocracy.
Despite, or perhaps because of, his upper class heritage, Captain Hook appears more evil than the other pirates. Jacqueline Rose, Chair in English at Queen Mary and Westfield College at the University of London, documents in The Case of Peter Pan or the Impossibility of Children’s Fiction that Barrie identified Hook’s famous public school as Eton in a speech to the First Hundred on 7 July 1927 (115). A pirate’s affiliation with this paragon of educational excellence amused British children. Though actual pirate captains were literate, historian Marcus Rediker documents that pirates and seamen came from the lowest social classes (261).
In contrast to Jim Hawkins in Treasure Island, Peter Pan wants to remain a child forever. Barrie uses clever symbols to represent this theme. Peter is brash, arrogant and selfish. His “Cock-a-doodle-doo” often announces the egotistical, childish Peter.
Though he lived over seventy years, Barrie retained a child-like psychological innocence and playfulness. The Scottish author and playwright was a brilliant intellectual, yet he may have suffered a glandular deficiency that impaired his physical development to maturity (Lurie 121). When Barrie was six-years-old, his older brother, David, died in a skating accident. His grief-stricken mother mourned for over a year. Young James devoted his entire life to comforting his mother and replacing his brother.
A second prevalent theme in Peter Pan is jealousy. Hot-tempered Tinker Bell, who loathes Wendy, tricks Tootles into shooting her rival out of the sky. When Peter scolds the tiny fairy, an angry jingling of bells and a flitting of light about the room expresses her invidious outburst. Wendy in turn distrusts the beautiful Tiger Lily who is “coquettish, cold, and amorous by turns” (Barrie 77).
Captain Hook speaks eloquently, loves flowers, and plays the harpsichord. He desires Peter’s demise, partially because Pan chopped off his hand and fed it to a hungry crocodile, but primarily because the boorish and uneducated boy is well respected while Hook is barely feared. The pirate villain’s hook indicates his apparent lack of wholeness because he requires respect and honor.
Peter Pan’s third theme is the immutable passage of time. The adventure in Neverland must come to an end. When the Lost Boys grow up, they are banished from the island. The recurring presence of the crocodile announced by the tick-tock of Hook’s clock in the reptile’s stomach reminds all of the characters that they cannot escape time. These symbols and themes are familiar to today’s children since they appear often in contemporary literature.
Most people think of Walt Disney images when they talk about Peter Pan. Yet, the famous British illustrator Arthur Rackham drew the first pictures of Peter Pan for Barrie’s 1902 Little White Bird. Barrie had the sections dealing directly with Peter Pan excerpted in 1906 and published as Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens.
The illustrators for Peter Pan and Wendy, later called Peter Pan, include Francis Donkin Bedford, Elisa Trimby, Alice Woodward, Mabel Lucie Atwell and the animators at Walt Disney Studios. These artists portrayed the child characters as they imagined them. Rackham drew Peter as a very small child, perhaps three or four years of age. Most illustrators pictured the children between the ages of six and eight-years-old. It is difficult to judge the age of animated figures but it appears that Disney depicts the children as slightly older than the other illustrators.
The themes and motifs of Treasure Island and Peter Pan recur not only in animated films and adult novels. They appear in picture books, most children’s introduction to literature.
Picture Book Treasure
Where there’s gold I’m a-goin’! (Kennedy n.p.)
Stevenson’s text appeared in 1884 and Barrie’s play became a novel in 1911. Pirates in these books form the pattern for most modern picture books. Picture books are usually children’s first contact with literature. These youngsters begin to formulate their ideas of moral values and character traits as well as role models as a result of their literary experience. They love the idea of the adventurous excitement of pirate life and the search for buried treasure.
Careful analyses of several contemporary picture books: Roger the Jolly Pirate, How I Became A Pirate, Pirates Don’t Change Diapers, Pirate Pete, Tough Boris, and Captain Abdul’s Pirate School reflect the influence of these two texts.
Each of these picture books features the notorious black and white pirate flag. This easily recognizable symbol of piracy originated long before Stevenson or Barrie. Both Silver and Hook flew the Jolly Roger, a common term for the pirate flag. When the pirates in Treasure Island seize the Hispaniola, Jim spies “the Jolly Roger – the black flag of piracy – flying from her peak” (Stevenson 157). The pirates aboard Hook’s ship, the Jolly Roger, sing a sinister song of “The flag o’ skull and bones” (Barrie 80).
Flags form an important part of pirate lore. Most featured some form of death symbol: a skeleton, an hourglass, a bleeding heart, and occasionally a sword. Jolly Roger is a corruption of the French term “jolie rouge” or “pretty red.” The pirates initially presented a black flag to signal that they would extend quarter (mercy) if the ship surrendered with no resistance. If the ship refused to acquiesce, the pirates ran up the red flag that denoted no leniency (Konstam 98-101).
The theme of moral ambiguity becomes the good/bad pirate in picture books. In Brett Helquist’s 2004 Roger, the Jolly Pirate, Roger is an incompetent pirate. He doesn’t know one side of the ship from the other and the sails are a continuous mystery. He is always cheerful and full of fun much to the dismay of his frightening shipmates. Roger would rather sing and tell tales than attack enemy ships. Roger’s merry disposition embarrasses his pirate crewmates who lock Roger below decks when they have any real pirating to do.
Melinda Long collaborated with illustrator David Shannon to produce two colorful and amusing picture books on pirates, How I Became A Pirate and Pirates Don’t Change Diapers. The rowdy pirates in both books have very bad manners, work and play as they wish, and follow no rules regarding cleanliness or dental hygiene.
Long emphasizes a devotion to motherhood in her second book, reminiscent of Barrie’s fondness for the subject. Captain Braid Beard must repair the ship’s figurehead that resembles his blessed mother. The comical crew baby-sits Jeremy Jacob’s little sister while they search for their treasure. Jeremy’s choice for his share of the treasure is a green brooch that matches his mother’s eyes.
In Pirate Pete, the tale written by the sister and brother team of Kim and Doug Kennedy, the diminutive pirate steals the queen’s treasure map and she apprehends him when he recovers her treasure. Pete imitates Long John Silver’s glib duplicity by telling the queen that he was simply digging up the treasure for her, but she snatches the gold and maroons Pete and his parrot on the island.
Written by Mem Fox and illustrated by Kathryn Brown, Tough Boris uses only seventy-one words of text to portray the duality of Captain Hook and Long John Silver. On the opening pages, Brown draws an ugly, unshaven pirate captain in the ubiquitous red frock coat as he and his parrot study a well-marked treasure map.
The surly crew digs up a treasure chest filled with gold and returns it to the ship. A young boy sneaks aboard and stows away bringing only his violin in its case. The scruffy, greedy and scary pirates discover the violin and wonder how it came aboard. They fight over the instrument until the boy spirits it away to play it in the hold. Once the pirates find the boy, they listen respectfully when he plays for them.
When the captain’s parrot dies, the boy provides his violin case for a casket. The massive and tough pirate captain cries as he mourns his lost pet and so does the young boy as he waves good-bye to the pirate ship that returns him to his homeland.
Modern children are able to recognize that most of the pirates in picture books are pretentious and humorous. They laugh at Captain Braid Beard and never take Pirate Pete seriously.
The search for adventure is as prevalent in children’s picture books as it is in the hearts of the readers who choose them. In Melinda Long’s two books, Jeremy Jacobs is excited about digging a hole for the pirate’s gold. Like Jim Hawkins, Jeremy has little interest in the treasure.
Pirate Pete is only interested in a-goin’ where there is gold but in Tough Boris illustrator Kathryn Brown presents her own story about an adventurous boy who is never mentioned in Fox’s narrative. This is a wonderful example of original thinking by the illustrator who provides an additional and poignant twist to the author’s text. In Captain Abdul’s Pirate School, Colin McNaughton’s mini-pirates mutiny and sail away to lives of swimming, staying up all night, painting and writing poetry.
Picture book writers exchange the image of the violent pirate of reality for the adventurous treasure hunter who can do as he or she pleases. They also present the consequences of these choices such as green teeth, stinky clothes, bad food, and no bedtime stories or goodnight kisses.
Avarice is well defined in Treasure Island as poor motivation with little reward. Contemporary picture books show a similar theme. Jolly Roger is more interested in amity than treasure. Pirate Pete is a victim of the greed that infected the characters in Treasure Island. Pete actually acts out Squire Trelawney’s words by rolling in the booty (Stevenson 53). His celebration is short-lived when the queen arrives.
The accoutrements and milieu of the pirates in Treasure Island and Peter Pan are prominent in current picture books. In Long’s two books, Shannon depicts Captain Braid Beard in a red coat resembling one worn by Captain Bartholomew Roberts, who Charles Johnson describes as a dapper corsair dressed in “crimson damask waistcoat and breeches, a gold chain with a diamond cross, two pistols, a sword, and a red feather in his hat” (211).
Barrie credits Hook with believing that the renegade resembled Charles II (76). The red coat is a sign of Hook’s authority aboard ship and his upper class upbringing. Pirate Pete and Tough Boris wear red coats apparently supplied by Hook’s tailor. The captain aboard Jolly Roger’s ship opts for the same style in royal blue.
Stevenson invented the idea of buried treasure and the treasure map. Though little historical evidence of pirate maps or buried treasure exists, the expectation of finding them lingers.
Buried treasure is mentioned in Jolly Roger while Long’s Captain Braid Beard focuses on burying booty in the first book and unearthing it in the second. Tough Boris and Pirate Pete dig up their share of treasure. These books feature a treasure map with Stevenson’s large black X to mark the location of the cache.
Helquist pays homage to Stevenson and Barrie by mentioning walking the plank. This form of dispatch for prisoners appears in Captain Abdul’s Pirate School and Jolly Roger.. Stevenson brings up walking the plank quite early in Treasure Island. Hook gleefully threatens both Wendy and the captive boys with the same fate. However, only one documented historical occurrence exists of this sentence for Dutch sailors aboard the Vhan Frederiche in 1829 (Cordingly 131).
In Jolly Roger, Poor Roger doesn’t rate a parrot but the author gives him an amusing red and white chicken to perch on his shoulder. McNaughton’s young pirates have parrots at their own private island and both Captain Braid Beard and Pirate Pete sport bright green cousins of Captain Flint on their shoulders. Captain Boris van der Borch’s pet parrot is his humanizing element.
Jolly Roger features one pirate with a hook and another with a wooden leg. Captain Abdul and Pirate Pete have both hooks and peg legs. David Shannon depicts one pirate in Long’s books with a hook while Captain Braid Beard has a wooden leg. There are no hooks in Tough Boris but one pirate has a peg leg.
Children accept the idea of a disability as a part of the rough and dangerous pirate lifestyle. In fact they often wear black eye patches with their pirate costumes. The disabled pirates in Peter Pan and Treasure Island are both active, strong individuals.
Research into the actual pirates who hung on the gibbet at Wapping Pier in the Thames River provides a picture of violence, lawlessness and cruelty. Our present romanticized view of pirates in children’s picture books is due in a large part to the authors of Treasure Island and Peter Pan.
The Legacy of Treasure Island and Peter Pan
The childhood daydreams of treasure maps, buried plunder, and sailing the seas have become
ingrained in our subconscious (Konstam 188).
In the last chapter of Treasure Island, Jim wishes Long John Silver some comfort in this life because he is certain that the pirate will find little reward in the afterlife. Stevenson gives us a character couched in the reality of piracy, but he adds a touch of generosity and affection from Jim Hawkins that alters our perception of the brigand.
Barrie establishes Captain James Hook’s cruelty in his first appearance when the pirate leader murders Skylights, one of his crewmen, for jostling him (Barrie 77). Yet this melancholy man wants Wendy to be the pirates’ mother and pours out his miserable life story to Smee. He loves music and flowers and sobs in anguish because little children do not love him.
The pirates creep about searching for Peter in an elaborate and amusing charade. It is no surprise that Walt Disney created a successful animated film based on this story, but it was Barrie, not Disney, who presented Hook and his pirates as caricatures.
Barrie intended his book for a younger audience than the readers of Treasure Island. Therefore the duality of Captain Hook lacks the subtlety of the moral ambiguity of Long John Silver. Both fictional villains in these novels chose a life of plunder and lawless violence serving under the Jolly Roger. Stevenson and Barrie created remarkably similar characters combining a violent leader and a likeable scoundrel.
The fictional inventions of Barrie and Stevenson are traditional in many contemporary pirate picture books. Captain James Hook’s aristocratic scarlet frock coat, black mustache, and sinister hook are present in nearly every picture book I examined. In addition, these books usually picture one pirate with a wooden leg reminiscent of Long John Silver. Stevenson’s hand-drawn treasure maps are as prevalent as earrings, parrots and eye patches.
These books also reflect the romanticized notion of the frightening pirate with a proclivity for opportunism and a potential for decency. Brett Helquist’s Jolly Roger is a hopeless failure at piracy, yet he rescues his shipmates who reward him with his own flag. Melinda Long’s Captain Braid Beard and his crew shout every reply in a rowdy coordinated chorus yet David Shannon pictures them as hilarious babysitters attempting to change Bonney Anne’s diapers. Pirate Pete is agoin’ after gold using his purloined treasure map with a few detours to acquire additional treasure on his way. He unsuccessfully tries to charm his way out of his final dilemma and we are glad that he escapes to embark on another voyage. Tough Boris is a poignant character. He is a rough, menacing, bold bandit who mourns his pet parrot’s demise. He conducts a ceremony to bury the bird at sea and kindly returns the young stowaway to his home. These books exemplify both the duality and the images of Treasure Island and Peter Pan.
The authors of Treasure Island and Peter Pan have an excuse for falling under the spell of adventure on the high seas and the desire for freedom from the constraints of British social propriety in fashioning exciting and appealing pirates. As Cordingly concludes in Under the Black Flag, “We want the myth, the treasure map, the buried treasure, the walking the plank, the resolute pirate captains with their cutlasses and earrings and seaman with their wooden legs and parrots” (244). Dustin Hoffman glibly cries, “Where would the world be without Captain Hook?” in Steven Spielberg’s film (Hook).
It is hard to imagine a publisher funding a picture book story based on the violent reality of pirates. The romantic pirate hero is the subject of adult, young adult, middle-grade novels, chapter books and picture books. As picture book readers and writers it is valuable for us to know some of the reality of piracy as well as the romanticized version promulgated by Stevenson and Barrie.
J.M. Barrie and Robert Louis Stevenson wrote their children’s novels nearly two hundred years ago. They introduced two legendary brigands and their myths supersede the reality of piracy. In the picture books of the present day, the influence of these older works about pirates lives on, stepping forth from the pages of the colorful adventures made famous by Stevenson in Treasure island and Barrie in Peter Pan.
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