Tell No Tales: Pirates of the Southern Seas

Gr 5-7–In a swashbuckling graphic tale that mingles history with fantasy, science fiction, and multiple challenges to conventional gender expectations, pirate captain Anne Bonny (who is white) and the racially diverse crew of the sloop La Sirene find themselves targeted by pirate chaser Woodes Rogers, who commands the Lophius, an ironclad paddlewheeler powered by the newly invented Newcomen steam engines. Along with visits to actual Caribbean sites and celebrities (notably the hidden location of Haiti’s Maroon leader Nanny, practitioner of what she calls “Obeah science”), the ensuing chase mixes battles with backstories on the way to a climactic clash, a rousing (if bloodless) finish, and a substantial afterword and source list. In cartoon art that stays inside the neatly squared-off panels, Wells goes for legibility with clean lines, clear colors, and big-eyed, expressive faces on theatrically posed figures that for all their 18th-century piratical garb look as modern as the story’s pervasive inclusivity. One (trans) pirate even speaks in emoji.