Jim Davis: High-Sea Adventure, A [Hardcover]

John Masefield (Author), Michael Morpurgo (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2002 | Age Level: 9 and up

An action-packed adventure, set in the old world of smugglers and buccaneers. The classic story is given new life in this new edition, featuring an introduction by bestselling author Michael Mopurgo.

Jim Davis is an ordinary twelve-year-old boy whose life takes a terrifying turn when he stumbles upon a ring of bloodthirsty pirates.At first, Jim delights in the thrill and adventure of sailing the seas and living the life of an outlaw. But Marah, the fierce buccaneer who leads the pirates, proves to be more dangerous than Jim first imagined. Will Jim find a way to escape from Marah ,or will he be lost at sea forever? Nearly 80 years after its original publication, John Masefield's classic tale has been brought back into print with an introduction by award-winning author Michael Morpurgo.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Best known perhaps for his poem "Sea-Fever" ("I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,/ And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by"), Masefield (1878-1967) produced this rattling yarn in 1911. The tale of a 12-year-old boy who falls in with smugglers could trace its lineage back to the swashbuckling stories of Robert Louis Stevenson and may find its modern-day offspring in such works as Iain Lawrence's High Seas trilogy. Jim, an orphan, is sent to live with relatives along the Devon coast. There he accidentally witnesses the deeds of a troop of night-riders, or smugglers, and becomes caught up in their shadowy, dangerous world of excise men, sea caves and illicit cargo. Forced to sign on for a voyage ("You've got to become one of us, so as if you give us away you'll be in the same boat," explains Marah Gorsuch, a mesmerizing, larger-than-life night-rider who might be friend or foe), Jim faces hurdle after hurdle. From a skirmish with a British frigate to a nightmarish chase on horseback to run-ins with soldiers and gypsies, the plot stays rip-roaring, and the atmospheric prose ("the strange moan of the snow-wind") supplies a polished, literary veneer. Ages 9-12.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Gr. 5-8. Originally published in 1911, this is an old-fashioned adventure story set in England in the early nineteenth century. On a snowy night, 12-year-old Jim Davis stumbles across a group of nightriders who are delivering contraband goods to the interior of the country. He meets one of the smugglers, enters the bandits' hidden cave, and is captured and forced to join two of their expeditions. Furious battles ensue, and Jim becomes a fugitive until finally returning home. Masefield was England's poet laureate, and his prose has a poet's grace and attention to detail. The language, however, doesn't get in the way of the rip-roaring plot, which taps into the rich vein of classic sea stories, such as Treasure Island. A glossary in the back explains the many obscure nautical terms. Todd Morning
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 9 and up
  
• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: The Chicken House; 3rd Canadian edition (November 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0439404363
• ISBN-13: 978-0439404365
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,250,477 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Traditional English high adventure literature, February 14, 2001

By 

Richard C Mallory (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Jim Davis (Library Binding)

If you like Robert Louis Stevenson, you will thoroughly enjoy Masefield's Jim Davis. I first read this at age 14 (with some vocab help from dear old dad) and it remains one of the best books I have read in a long while. Being a history major and an english minor I found the prose of this book delightful and the historical significance astounding. If you are an adult who has read and re-read Stevenson too much and want the same genre but a different author/plot Jim Davis is the novel for you. If you have a child whom you wish to turn onto fine literature Jim Davis will grab your child's imagination and illustrate a grand adventure of pirates, smugglers, soldiers and gypsies for it. Any child (old or young) can relate to the stories narrator, this is a jewel of English literature. Another great Stevenson alternate is J. Meade Falkner's Moonfleet, it is a bit of an easier read than Jim Davis, but contains just as much adventure.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Boy's Adventures Along the Devon Coast, February 6, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Jim Davis (Library Binding)

This story is set in early 19th century Devon, during the Napoleonic Wars. The narrator is a boy in his early teens, who by chance and high spirits falls in with a gang of smugglers bringing contraband by sea from France to England. It's a fast-moving story, in the tradition of R. L. Stevenson, and a good look at the history of the period along England's south coast too.

5.0 out of 5 stars A poet's adventure novel, September 7, 2011

By 

othoniaboys - See all my reviews

This review is from: Jim Davis (Kindle Edition)

Masefield is usually classified as a poet, which he was, but he also wrote novels, among them this somewhat overlooked gem of adventure for boys. I found it quite charming and would recommend it to any boy who daydreams of going back in history and taking part in thrilling scrapes.