Every kid knows that pirates talk funny, swing a big sword, and seek
buried treasure--don't they? What do we really know about Blackbeard,
Madame Cheng, Sir Francis Drake, and other men and women of pirate
history? What drove them to sail the high seas? What were their bad
habits, favorite foods, and silly quirks? And did they actually talk
like that?
A lively style, lots of surprises, and solid research have made the
Lives of . . . series of collective biographies popular with both kids
and adults. Now the series returns, spanning the globe with profiles of
the nineteen most notorious pirates in history.