Customer Reviews

Pirate Lafitte and the Battle of New Orleans, The

5 star:		(3)
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My friend has just written me about this book. I LOVED it as a 10 year old--and I loved it when I reread it a year or so after I was 40. And I plan now to buy it for my grand daughter. This is a fun and informative book. I wish more young kid books were like this.

This is the sort of book which can speak to ten-year-olds of the things that matter most to them: blood, honor, fear, group cohesion. For all the carefully bowdlerized children's books they fed us at school, this is the one that was engraved on our minds, telling us how the higher life could be lived.

I stumbled across this book at a pirate costume website. It was on sale for $1 (however shipping was $13 so downloading on Kindle was cheaper!). We are taking a trip to New Orleans for a week over Halloween, and I thought this might be an interesting read for our 12 and 9 year old kids before our trip.

WOW is all I can say. Jean LaFitte is more than just the name of the landing from which the boats leave in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland! ;

Incredibly well written! Simple, clear, eloquent and fascinating! Filled with vivid descriptions woven with historical fact. The book begins with what feels like a fictional *story* and then tells you that it is based on a letter from the person and scene described which has survived through today in a museum. From this point on, I felt comfortable that what we were reading was well researched and documented.

It is a small little book, however, both of my children, my husband, and myself are all on the edges of our seats every night waiting in anticipation to find out what happens next. My kids are learning so much about our history that I never knew (as am I, having been educated in America, I of course, know virtually nothing about our country's history...) and they are hanging on every word. This book has brought history to life for them. I never want it to end and we can't wait to visit all of the historical places we are reading about when we arrive in New Orleans!!!