Children’s literature: Maggie and the Pirate

Self-tutoring about children’s books: the tutor mentions Maggie and the Pirate, by Ezra Jack Keats.

The following is by my understanding.

Likely the book by Ezra Jack Keats one is most likely to know is The Snowy Day. I’m not sure where that book is set, but would have guessed Chicago. However, I guess it might have been Brooklyn, since that’s where Ezra Jack Keats was from. Anyway, The Snowy Day is a great book for a reader of any age. I watched it read on a television show back in the 70s.

Just by chance, I saw Maggie and the Pirate in a book shelf today. Then I saw its author: Ezra Jack Keats. I pulled it out and read it. One could recognize the illustration style from The Snowy Day.

The protagonist in Maggie and the Pirate, similar to how I remember Peter in The Snowy Day, sees the world without fear. Maggie’s cricket gets kidnapped by someone claiming to be “The Pirate,” so Maggie immediately starts searching for said Pirate so she can get her cricket back. When she finds the Pirate, she tackles him in order to retrieve her cricket.

In my opinion, Ezra Jack Keats is able to cut through the fog of adult “what-ifs” in order to portray a kid’s reality. Nonetheless, in some of his illustrations, wherein the background color often matches the mood of the moment, the child is shown as part of very big world.

I can’t recall reading Maggie and the Pirate to my kids while they were kids, but I still might read it to them:)

Source:

poetryfoundation.org

Keats, E.J. (1979). Maggie and the Pirate. Scholastic Books Services.