Meyer, L.A. Bloody Jack; being an account of the curious adventures of Mary "Jacky" Faber, ship's boy.

MEYER, LA. Bloody Jack; being an account of the carious adventures of Mary "Jacky" Faber, ship's boy. Harcourt. 301 p. c2002. 0-15-205085-X. $6.95. J*

To quote from the review of the hardcover in KLIATT. September 2002: This stands up to Avi's The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle and to Iain Lawrence's trilogy of sea adventures: the action is riveting, the settings exotic and realistically described, and the main character is memorably inventive and courageous. At the beginning of the 19th century, Mary, an orphan on London's mean streets, disguises herself and signs on to His Majesty's Navy as a ship's boy. The ship holds 400 men and is assigned to hunt for pirates along the coast of North Africa and in the Caribbean. Mary, now Jacky, is small for her age and tough, so she has no trouble maintaining The Deception, as she names her task of shielding the truth about her identity.

Life on board ship is described vividly and the reader feels a part of the voyages. A few years pass and Jacky starts to fill out a bit and gets her period, so her subterfuge gets trickier. She and the boys are quite ignorant about sexual matters, for the most part, but they have been warned against pederasts, admonished to stick together for protection. Jacky is falling in love with another ship's boy, Jaimy, who in horror tells her he is afraid he is like a pederast because he is attracted to her (Jaimy thinks she is a boy at this point). Jacky reveals her secret and the two sneak around finding places to tryst like any other pair of teenage lovers. Speaking of pederasts, there is one on board, who almost rapes Jacky. Fortunately, she has the presence of mind (and the dagger) to kill him. This is only one scene of violent mayhem, as pirate attacks on the ship occur and Jacky earns her title of Bloody Jack for good reason.

The action gets only more thrilling towards the end of the book, as Jacky, with an eyeglass, is hoisted onto a kite as a lookout, but the tree the kite is lashed to is uprooted and she flies away for miles across the sea. Fortuitously, she lands on an island where pirates have stashed their treasure, and so it goes. There is drama until the final page. Any younger YA--through 14 or 15 years old--would love this, and even the passages of dialect shouldn't deter readers. (An ALA Best Book for YAs.) Claire Rosser, KLIATT