Heather,
Sounds like we have similar situations happening. We haven’t allowed our son to see Pirates of the Caribbean either, but we found out it was played in the background at a birthday party he went to, who would have thought there would be a movie playing at a mid-day party the one time I couldn’t accompany him? Lesson learned…aargh! (you can add a piratey sound to that if you want to 😀 )!
Our son loves to play with his Playmobil pirate and redcoat toys and I’ve reiterated the fact that the pirates were the bad guys and the redcoats were the good guys. G.A. Henty’s book “Among Malay Pirates” is one we might look for, although I’m having a hard time finding reviews about whether the villains are glamorized or not (I think it’s available for free online, so I might preview it to see if it’s worth getting). As for historical literature specifically about the battles between redcoats and pirates, I’m hard-pressed to find any. There is however, a book by Alexandre O. Exquemelin titled The Buccaneers of America which is one of few first-hand accounts of life on a 17th century pirate ship. He was the barber/surgeon/confidante of welsh privateer Henry Morgan and his book is quite a fascinating read, in fact most of the 18th and 19th century pirate-lore literature can be traced back to this early sourcebook.
I think what really churns my gut regarding this whole issue has more to do with a societal shift of good and evil than just the subject of pirates. For example, have you noticed that the supposedly “coolest” costumes are the bad guys (Darth Vader, Davey Jones, any old evil dude will do). Years ago boys would mostly quarrel over who got to play the hero but now I’ve seen boys squabble over who gets to play the “cool” bad guy. I think that began to take subtle root when films like Captain Blood premiered and Errol Flynn played the dashing swashbuckler. Hmmm… that’s the world, no big shocker there, but it still grieves me!
Our family is going to inject a bunch of “hero tales” (both fiction and non-fiction) into our reading and discussions. Like most other things, I think the pirate sensation is a passing phase that we ought to “guide and steer towards a safe harbor”. The inclination of a child’s heart longs for adventure and we need to find proper tales to nourish and direct that hunger.
As a side note, there are three Hardy Boys books which revolve around pirate lore and hidden treasure: The Secret of Pirates’ Hill, The Hidden Harbor Mystery, and The Twisted Claw. One of my personal favorite’s is the Nancy Drew mystery The Secret of the Wooden Lady. Sometimes it is better to get lost in a story that doesn’t revolve around the pirates themselves, but simply what they left behind.
If you have any other thoughts I’d love to hear them, I realize this post has gone all over the place!
Rachel
