The Pirate Pig
Julie is an exceptional pig. She can sniff out treasure. With Stout Sam and his deckhand Pip, Julie finds a wonderful new home, but gold-grubbing pirates kidnap her. However, Stout Sam and Pit already have a lead.
Who needs a treasure map when you have a pirate pig with a nose for gold? Stout Sam and his deckhand, Pip, find a pig washed up in a barrel on the beach. They want to keep her as a pet, but they soon realize Julie is no ordinary pig. She can sniff out treasure! What happens if Barracuda Bill, the greediest and meanest pirate who ever sailed the seas, hears about Julie’s special talent?
- First published 2015
- Reading age Age 7
- Illustrated by Vivienne To and Kerstin Meyer
- Publisher Penguin Random House
- Available at IndieBound.org
- Also available as Audio Book
On Butterfly Island, everybody knew Stout Sam and his boat with the green sail. Sam lived together with Pip, his deckhand, on the beach, in a small hut under trees that grew the sweetest fruit on the whole island.
But you can't live on fruit alone. That's why there was a sign on Sam's hut. It said: ISLAND TRANSPORTS.
Pip had written the sign, while Stout Sam had watched him full of admiration and growled, "Shiver me timbers, boy, those are some devishly tricky words you're writing there."
The two of them really had a lot to do. Even when it stormed so badly that the jellyfish crawled ashore, Stout Sam and Pip sailed out and took coconuts, or barrels of rum, or crates full of stockfish from one island to the other. Every evening, they returned to their hut, and they felt happy as they climbed into their hammocks. It was a peaceful life, and they liked it.
But then, one morning, the two decided to take a walk on the beach before work. Stout Sam looked out across the sea, and Pip searched the sand for seashells. And suddenly the waves washed up a barrel right in front of their feet.
When Pip looked inside the barrel, he found a pig grunting back at him. The pig was barely bigger than a pug, and around its neck hung a golden chain with a skull-and-crossbones pendant. "Parrot perch and swordfish fins!" said Stout Sam. "We can't leave the wee thing out here, can we, Pip?" "Out of the question," Pip answered. He lifted the little pig out of the barrel, and they took it back to their hut.
They named the pig Julie. And very soon they realized what they had found was no ordinary pig.
This one is a book I wrote for an illustrator: Kerstin Meyer had painted such fantastic pigs for "Princess Pigsty", that I just had to write another pig story for her.