The Jolly Regina

Kale and Jaundice Bland, twin sisters who live in the town of Dullsville, are quite content with their lives darning socks, eating plain oatmeal, and reading the dictionary for fun. They aren’t even concerned about their parents, who left to run an errand several years earlier and never returned. After the girls are kidnapped by Deadeye Delilah, captain of a band of all-female pirates, they are thrust into an adventure that involves their missing parents, questionable stews, and Deadeye Delilah’s nemesis, Captain Ann Tennille. Deadpan dialogue helps the sisters live up to their surname (“I hope they have some salve on hand, wherever we’re going,” notes Kale, as the girls are hauled off in a chafe-inducing burlap sack), but there’s no shortage of the kind of “Serious, Life-Threatening Peril” that the twins typically avoid. Filled with puns, intrigue, and ample evidence that women make excellent—and ruthless—pirates, it’s a promising introduction to the Unintentional Adventures of the Bland Sisters series. Final art not seen by PW. Ages 8–12. [em]Author’s agent: Barry Goldblatt, Barry Goldblatt Literary. Illustrator’s agent: Anne Moore Armstrong, Bright Agency. (Jan.) [/em]