A High Wind in Jamaica (urspr publ 1928; utgåvan 1928)

A book about children and pirates? Sounds fun. And on the surface it is. The five Bas-Thorton children are being raised in a haphazard fashion on a dilapidated plantation in Jamaica in the mid-1800s. After an earthquake and a hurricane in quick succession, the parents decide to send their children, along with two other children, to England for safety. Not long after departing, the barque is overrun by pirates. In a comedy of errors, the pirates attempt to use the children as hostages and instead end up stuck with them on their ship. One almost feels sorry for the pirates. But throughout the entire book there is an undercurrent of darkness, which only gets more disturbing as the tale progresses.

Although the word trauma is never used, the children are exposed to a series of traumatic, life-threatening events, from natural disasters to kidnapping, and they must cope without any emotional support from adults. Left to make sense of the world on their own, they come to decisions that can be funny (are the sailors pirates or pilots?) or cold and deadly. By the end of the book, even the things that seemed funny earlier take on darker meaning. ( )

Modern Library put this book on its list of "100 best novels of the twentieth century". I am perplexed. This is an odd story of an English family living in Jamaica in the early 1900s. When they experience a hurricane, the parents decide it's a good idea to send their young children (all under 10) back to England on a ship by themselves. The children set off on a ship which is promptly overrun by pirates. This sets them on a strange, sometimes violent, dangerous voyage.

I was disengaged a lot of the time from this. I guess it was an adventure story, but it didn't grab my attention. I would often read a couple of pages and then think, wait, what just happened?! And go back to reread some unbelievable chain of events. Maybe I just wasn't in the right mood for this. It seems to be a book that many people love. It just wasn't for me. ( )

Ugh, after about 10 pages the racism and cruelty to both animals and people was more than I could abide. This is supposed to be a classic?

I registered this book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/14754247

A small group of children is sent off on a ship to London, to escape the high winds of Jamaica and obtain a good education. However, pirates raid the ship and, somewhat inadvertently, take the children.

These aren't pirates of old. They aren't actually dangerous, although they pretend to be. The children, used to being shuffled around without their consent, take things in stride. They don't seem particularly aware that they have been kidnapped. So they make the most of their situation. Although their sleeping accommodations are less than desirable, they accept what they get.

Things happen on board that ship, however. Emily, age ten, emerges as the leader of the children when an older child abdicates. She is at the center of the troubles and ultimately testifies against her captors, accusing them of actions they did not take. But she has reason. Unfortunately, she is the only one who knows what she is hiding.

The tale is child-oriented. Emily undergoes various changes in her mind during the months at sea, changes related to her maturation. But she is still a child with a child's needs and wants. Is this a Lord-of-the-Flies situation, as some have suggested? In a way, perhaps. I disagree with the writer of the introduction, Isabel Paterson, who postulates that children are essentially amoral, have no way to differentiate right from wrong. I believe they very well know right from wrong, from quite an early age, although the scale of rightess and wrongness may be out of kilter to them.

The writing is simple and friendly, even humorous at times. The narrator speaks in the first person about himself or herself yet we never figure out who he or she represents. Just the teller of the story.

It's a short, highly readable book about an intriguing topic: the way children perceive the world. Or, perhaps, the way well-brought-up white children perceived the world in the early part of the 20th century. ( )

Despite some passages in the beginning of the book that show the British imperialist perspective in all its casual racism, the writing in this book is marvelous. Hughes seemed to have a great insight into how children think (or don't think) but I must admit that I was chilled by how John's disappearance was ignored. The children's silence would have made more sense to me if they had seen or known of his death but except for Margaret, they didn't know what had happened to him. Of course, worse followed! I felt quite sorry for Jonsen and his crew at the end. ( )